Zakydalsky, Oksana. Contemporary art from Ukraine exhibited in Poland // The Ukrainian Weekly, October 10, 1993, No. 41, Vol. LXI

TORONTO – “My trip to Ukraine was for me a revelation. It allowed me to see new tendencies in art about which I had not heard and, at the same time, it provoked me to act.” Such was the reaction of Jurij Onuch after his trip to Ukraine in 1991. Invited to be a member of the jury for the Lviv Biennale, he realized, after meeting artist Vasyl Bazhay whose works had been rejected for the Biennale because they were “too big,” that the Lviv exhibit did not give an adequate overview of the state of visual arts in Ukraine himself.

After meeting other innovative artists, mostly through referrals by Halyna Sklarenko of the Institute of Art in Kyyiv, Mr. Onuch decided to organize an exhibit of contemporary art of Ukraine.

Primarily a performance artist, Mr. Onuch, has lived in Toronto since 1987 but was, in the early l980s, an active member of the artistic avant garde in Warsaw. Through his connections in Warsaw, he was able to interest the Polish Ministry of Culture in sponsoring such an exhibit.

Why organize, from Toronto, an exhibit of art from Ukraine to be held in Warsaw?

“Living in a calmer part of the world, in some comfort, we can take the initiative in projects which, at this time, do not seem so important in Ukraine where something needs to be done almost in every phase of life. Some people say that for art and culture the time will come later. Probably so, but we should realize that by that time Ukrainian culture may be limited to soap operas with a Kozak in the main role…or even worse,” Mr. Onuch replied. In order to find new talent, someone has to seize the initiative.

On October 1, the exhibit of new art from Ukraine – called “The Steppes of Europe” – is opening at the Warsaw Center for Contemporary Art for a five-week run. It features 12 artists living and working in Ukraine, ranging in age from their late 20s to early 40s.

According to Mr. Onuch, who is the curator of the show, the artists chosen are ones whose work to date “reveals a thriving individualism as well as a dynamism that is yet to flower to its fullest expression,” and are representative of what is, in his opinion, the most progressive art in Ukraine. The exhibition includes about 50 works – mostly painting but also sculpture-installation, mixed media and video.

A conference on Polish-Ukrainian relations is being held at the same time at which art historian Myoslava Mudrak, University of Ohio, will speak on contemporary Ukrainian art.

Writing last year in ARTnews (October 1992) on post-perestroika art, Konstantine Akinsha pointed out the emergence of Kyyiv as a center of contemporary art distinct from Moscow. He focused on the so-called Paris Commune group in Kyyiv, gathered around critic Alexander Soloviev and the Warsaw exhibit will feature a number of them. Arsen Savadov and Heorhiy Senchenko are preparing a video piece and Oleksander Roitburd from Odessa will have several oils at the show.

Unfortunately, the artist many considered the most talented and promising in Kyyiv – Oleh Holosiy – whom Mr. Onuch had earmarked to be the star of the Warsaw show, died tragically at the beginning of this year aged only 26. He will be represented by only one canvas.

Other artists from Kyyiv included in the show are Valentyn Raievsky, Oleh Tistol, Hlib Vysheslavsky, who is doing an installation and Serhiy Panych, known for paintings evoking a nostalgia for the salon. There is a second artist from Odessa, Vasyl Riabchenko, who does painterly installations with stagey backgrounds.

The exhibit will also feature the Rousseau-like canvases of Yevhen Leshchenko from Kryvyi Rih, the works of Mykola Matsenko from Cherkasy and of two artists from Lviv – Andriy Sahaidakowsky and Vasyl Bazhay, whose large abstract canvases were the first motivation behind this show.

The title of the exhibit chosen by Mr. Onuch, “The Steppes of Europe,” reflects somewhat his Eurocentric vision of Ukrainian art. He explains that the title should be interpreted in a cultural and intellectual sense, not merely a physical one. Ukraine, often torn between a European and pan-Slavic identity, is an unknown territory for Europeans but an integral part of their consciousness, although still on the periphery – steppe.

“The revolutionary political changes in Eastern Europe have uncovered a series of organisms, part living tissue, part cadaver, growing on the skeletal remains of the Soviet empire. The stereotypes through which this part of the world has been perceived are no longer adequate for describing or understanding these revived growths…the multi-levelled entanglements of artist living and working in Ukraine – in history and tradition, in myths of place and land, in their specific cosmogony – need to be discovered,” writes Mr. Onuch. Art in Ukraine exists not only as a continuation of traditions depending on banal folklorism. He wanted to show art as risk rather than art as decoration.

The exhibit is being sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of Poland and the Stepan Batory (Soros) Foundation in Warsaw. The fact that the budget for the exhibition, including the costs of bringing all the artists to Warsaw for two weeks, is being covered by the Polish side, shows the interest that Ukrainian art has generated in Warsaw.

Unfortunately, to date, funds for the production of a catalogue of the exhibit, which is a necessity if it is to go anywhere else in Europe, have not been secured. But Mr. Onuch hopes that he will still be able to produce a catalogue which will document the visual and theoretical richness of the contemporary Ukrainian art scene.