When I was swept away by the news that "the West completely abandoned Ukraine", I suddenly remembered the biennale that was born in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, the biennial that "debuted at its peak" and was later delayed due to war, suspension and finally no news.
The Kiev Biennale was founded in 2012 and, if all goes well, it should have celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.
"This is the best of times, this is the worst of times."
This is the most quoted quote from Dickens's novel and the theme of the first Kiev Biennale in 2012. The biennial, which advocates challenging western artistic leadership, initially garnered the attention of the global art scene when it was first held in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, and the media once described its birth as "born out of nowhere."
David Elliott, curator of the inaugural Kiev Biennale, was the first director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and was critically acclaimed for curating the Sydney Biennale "The Beauty of Distance" in 2010. The global curator describes Ukraine this way: "The country is always at a crossroads, and it is influenced by two things: an idealized revolution, and a relationship between East and West. ”
At the exhibition site, curator David Elliott (first from left) is the media guide
Exhibition site
As a result, he sees Ukraine as a complex scene of multi-million-fold relationships. Among the 100 artists he selected, 22 Ukrainian artists allowed the biennale to focus on the local area, while also inviting big-name artists from all over the world such as Yayoi Kusama, Paul McCarthy, Raqib Shaw and others from all over the world.
The chinese participating artists were extremely grand, including Song Dong, Wang Qingsong, Miao Xiaochun, Yin Xiuzhen, Yang Fudong, Wuding Company, Liu Jianhua, Zhou Zixi, Wei Dong, Lin Dongpeng and others. The most prominent work is Song Dong's installation "The Wisdom of Poverty", which occupies the entire room and has been exhibited in Venice and London before being exhibited in Kiev, "very suitable for the open space of the Kiev Biennale". Song Dong won the "First Kiev Biennale Award".
The first Kiev Biennale brought about a series of chain reactions.
The day after the biennial unfolds, the local gallery held a group exhibition featuring local Ukrainian artists under the title "Perspective", including some Ukrainian artists who had participated in the 2001 Venice Biennale. This group of artists with an average age of more than 50 represents the perspective of the older generation of local artists.
Coinciding with the Biennale was Anish Kapoor's first major solo exhibition in Eastern Europe at the Pinchuk Art Center. The exhibition brings together Kapoor's most iconic works and also includes a rigid structural work made especially for the Pinchuk Art Center.
In May 2013, a large-scale group exhibition of 11 Chinese artists was held at the Pingchuk Art Center in Kiev, with the participation of Yang Fudong, Zhang Huan, Yan Xing, Sun Xun, Zhao Yao, Sun Yuan Pengyu, Zhao Zhao, Chen Zhen, Xu Zhen, etc. The Pinchuk Art Center is the first large-scale art center in Ukraine and is known as the largest private museum in Eastern Europe. In 2015, the Pinchuk Art Center and the Peacechuk Foundation also co-organized the National Pavilion of Ukraine at the Venice Biennale.
While driving the primary art market, the Biennale has also won unprecedented attention for Ukrainian contemporary art in the global secondary art market.
This wave of residual heat even continued into 2014.
At the beginning of 2014, curated by Elliott, the New Horizon Art Center and the German Momentum Berlin launched the New Year's Eve special project " The Best Of Times, the Worst Times " and the first (2012) Kiev Biennale Video Retrospective in Shanghai. The exhibition presents some of the video works of the first Kiev Biennale, in addition to the recent works of artists Yang Fudong and Miao Xiaochun, but also brings new works by rare Ukrainian artists and Turkish artists. The exhibition has been exhibited in Berlin, Istanbul and other places.
The exhibition is still in progress, and the news of the postponement of the second Kiev Biennale has come. The exhibition, which was originally scheduled for February 2014, had to be postponed to 2015 due to protests and demonstrations that broke out in the area. A year later, in March 2015, the Museum of the Former Arsenal District announced that the second Kiev Biennale was cancelled due to ongoing conflict.
When the biennale was just postponed, there were comments that "Ukraine is in chaos, but Ukrainian art is not in chaos." The second Kiev Biennale, which was later postponed indefinitely, showed that this was not the case. In contrast, the acting director of the Odessa Museum of Fine Arts, Oleksandra Kovachuk, is more sober-minded.
According to media reports, he recently posted on Facebook that "external threats are ukrainianizing the Odessa Museum of Art." "Not only did the staff quickly switch to Ukrainian to communicate, but the Ukrainian flag was added to all the museum's publications. Kovachuk said perhaps now some people think that museums or art should be divorced from politics. But, "throughout history, art has and is part of politics and is inextricably linked to public life." ”
You don't understand Ukraine
Ukrainian oil paintings are more famous than beautiful women
When it comes to Ukraine, many people's first impression is Ukrainian beauty. In fact, the oil paintings here are more famous.
Located in the east of Europe, Ukraine is the largest country in Europe outside of Russia and one of the core countries of the former Soviet Union. Ukraine is home to 130 ethnic groups, rich in artistic traditions, once influenced by the Renaissance, very close cultural exchanges with European countries, and one of the centers of art in the former Soviet Union.
Before you start, Ta Jablonskaya Oil on canvas
126cmx210cm 1947
Collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts of Ukraine
Ukrainian painting was an extremely important part of pre-Soviet Russian painting. The representative of the itinerant school of painting, Repin, as well as Ayvanovsky, Boroviksky, Kuinzhi, Kramskoy and other oil painters were born in Ukraine, and the late outstanding people's artist and hero of the Ukrainian people, Jablonskaya, was even more famous. The Kyiv State Academy of Fine Arts is one of the three major academies of fine arts in the former Soviet Union.
In the 1950s, Ukrainian art works, which were an important part of the art of the former Soviet Union, were widely introduced to the mainland and had a profound impact on the artistic creation and art education of new China.
After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, as an independent republic, the art of painting in Ukraine has developed by leaps and bounds, forming a unique style based on national traditions and integrating multiculturalism. In recent years, Ukrainian oil paintings have been exhibited in many places in China, and cultural exchange activities between China and Ukraine have occurred frequently.
In 2018, the "Flowing Golden Colors - Ukrainian Museum Cultural Relics and Practical and Decorative Arts Exhibition" held at the Yongshou Palace of the Palace Museum allowed Chinese audiences to understand the long and splendid history and culture of Ukraine, and also became familiar with a museum from Ukraine, the Ukrainian Plata Museum of History and Cultural Heritage. The exhibition presents rare archaeological artifacts from Ukraine and works by contemporary artists, and the archaeological collection presents the golden artifacts of the historical heritage of the Triboye and Scythian eras, showing the interconnection of Ukrainian culture and ancient Chinese civilization in the historical context of the Silk Roads.
In Ukraine, there is much to linger on in the artistic heritage, including museums.
Built in 1037, the Hagia Sophia in the capital Kiev is not only the soul of the Ukrainian Orthodox faith, but also a marvel of medieval architecture, famous all over the world for its massive dome. Built of brick and stone, the building is laid out in a rigorous and imposing manner, with a spacious and majestic promenade.
On its semi-circular roof, there are thin gold flakes in some places. There are many frescoes and mosaics inside the church. Among them, "The Virgin of Prayer" is made of 177 glass stones, the number of which exceeds 3 million pieces, and the image of the Virgin in the picture is 5.5 meters high.
St. Andrew's Church is located on The steep St. Andrea's Hill in Kiev, overlooking the ancient Podil neighborhood. One of the four major architectural landmarks in Ukraine today, this Baroque church has a green gold-topped blue wall that looks like it's wearing a gold-encrusted crown from a distance.
The church consists of a large dome and 5 minarets, the façade of the church is decorated with 6 Corinthian columns, and the windows and doors of the interior are decorated with exquisite and ornate pendants. Because of its steep hillside, the foundations of the church have always been a concern. In early 2021, St. Andrew's Church, which has been restored for 5 years, is finally reopened to visitors.
The Slope of Andrea, adjacent to the church, is Kiev's old cultural street, named after the church, and the oil painting stalls on the road have become a major feature. It is said that the Slope of Andre was once inhabited by painters, musicians, writers and other literary and artistic workers.
Built in 1051, kiev cave monasteries are famous monuments of Kiev and were listed as a World Heritage Site in 1990. The cave monastery consists of two caves 400 meters apart, first as monastic chambers and later as burial chambers of priests, who naturally dried into mummies due to the special environment of the caves.
Ukrainian portraits carved on grains of rice
At present, the monastery has a number of churches and museums, which can see archaeological relics from Egypt, Cyprus and the holy land of Jerusalem, gold and silver crafts from the 15th to 20th centuries, historical paintings, as well as paintings and sculptures of Picasso, Dalí and other masters, of which the most concerned is the Museum of Miniature Art. Each piece is as small as a millimeter, and many are among the guinness points in the world. The world's smallest book, Tarassherpchenko's Poetry Collection, is housed in this museum and measures as small as 0.6 mm.
Located in Kiev, the National Museum of Ukrainian Art was founded in 1898 with a focus on the collection, preservation and exhibition of Ukrainian art, making it the pride of Ukrainian culture with its artistic treasures. The museum survived two world wars and changed its name several times until after the independence of Ukraine, when it was named the "National Museum of Art of Ukraine".
In 2019, the National Art Museum of Ukraine inaugurated the new logo
Documenting the development of Ukraine and the advance of art, the museum currently houses works by Ukrainian artists from all over the world, covering medieval drawings, drawings of the army from the Cossack period and drawings of church leaders, as well as historic oil paintings, watercolors of mysterious colors and stunning thematic sculptures.
The Odessa Museum of Art, located in Odessa, Ukraine, is the city's most important art institution. Of the museum's collection of more than 10,000 works of art, 15 are the most precious originals from Ivan Awazovsky (1817-1900). Turner had great admiration for the young Awazovsky, who was hailed as "the world's greatest painter of seascapes." The Odessa Museum of Art was founded in 1899 and is located in a building that is nearly 200 years old. Originally the residence of the aristocratic Count Naryshkin, it was later purchased by the famous philanthropist and art collector Gregory Mahazli, who donated it to the city of Odessa after his death along with his collection.
The National History Museum of Ukraine was founded in 1944 and tells the history of Ukraine from ancient times to the present. The museum tells the history of Ukraine from the prehistoric period to the present through a large number of exhibits, pictures and texts, displaying historical objects from different periods, and is the exhibition center of Ukraine's cultural heritage. The museum now has a precious collection of more than 800,000 items, covering archaeology, ancient coins, national customs, weapons, arts and crafts, manuscripts, books, paintings and many other aspects, spanning different historical periods such as ancient times, Stone Age, Kievan Rus', the Russian Empire to modern Ukraine.
The Chernobyl National Museum of Ukraine is dedicated to the exhibition of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Since its establishment in 1992, the museum has collected nearly 7,000 documents and maps, pictures and some physical exhibits, including samples of piglets that have been genetically mutated due to severe nuclear radiation, photographs of victims, portraits of heroes who died for disaster relief, news photos that caused the world to shake, etc., telling visitors about the world's largest nuclear accident from all sides.
Although 36 years have passed, the extremely severe impact of the accident on people, life and land continues. In 2021, then-Prime Minister Tymoshenko posted on social platforms plans to renovate the roads in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exclusion zone to facilitate the entry and exit of tourists, ecologists and researchers. The plan also includes the construction of a modern museum-checkpoint and rest areas.
Kiev also has the Pinchuk Art Center, the largest private museum in Eastern Europe, founded by billionaire victor Pinchuk, a patron of Ukrainian art. He is best known for collecting large sculptures by Jeff Koons, but also enjoys collecting works by popular artists in the market, such as Damien Hearst and Takashi Murakami. The Mystetskyi Armoury, which hosts the first Kiev Biennale, is a national cultural center founded by him.
The Pinchuk Foundation, founded by Victor, is influential in the art world, not only running the Pinchuk Art Center in Kiev (founded in 2006), but also managing the highly competitive "Art Prize for The Future Generation" (founded in 2010), which pays up to $100,000.
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