MoMA post presents: Art, Resistance, and New Narratives in Response to the War in Ukraine

October 12, 2022

post presents: Art, Resistance, and New Narratives in Response to the War in Ukraine: October 12, 6:30pm

The Maidan revolution, which was followed by the acquisition of Crimea and the occupation of Donbas in 2014, and the full-scale Russian invasion that began on February 24, 2022, will be the focus of this evening’s discussion by artists, researchers, and curators.

Ukraine’s creative community has long responded to the conflict. However, it appears that the recent, violent invasion was the only time their voices were amplified. A future archive of the present that both records the atrocities and suggests new accounts of art history is already being formed by the art produced over the last eight years and these most recent responses.

Participants: Svitlana Biedarieva, Ewa Sułek, Lesia Khomenko, Nikita Kadan.

Co-moderated by Paulina Pobocha, MoMA Associate Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture and Inga Lāce, MoMA C-MAP Central and Eastern Europe Fellow.

This discussion was started by the Polish Cultural Institute in New York as a last-ditch effort to fend off a frontal Russian assault on Ukrainian cultural heritage. The narratives crafted by the artists will be discussed by the speakers, as well as how they have changed since the invasion this year. Can we discuss art in Ukraine within the context of post-colonialism and decolonization? Should we turn to art history to comprehend the present and envision a time after the horrific events have passed? The event will serve as a venue for understanding how this study and these processes link to museum practices looking at historical and theoretical concerns in relation to art history, as well as for thinking through those and other questions.

A “postcolonial turn,” defined by researcher Ewa Sułek as a phenomena based on the healing and acceptance of history and of the past in its hybrid form without the imposition of imperial or national patterns, is what transpired in the visual arts after 2014. Sułek will elaborate on this idea. Svitlana Biedarieva, an art historian, will discuss the evolution and alteration of documentary methods in Ukrainian wartime art through an analysis of pieces by Yevgenia Belorusets, Dana Kavelina, Vlada Ralko, and Alevtina Kakhidze. Lesia Khomenko, an artist, will speak about her practice, which at the moment focuses on different perspectives on the conflict and the connection between digital archives and the materiality of painting.Nikita (Mykyta) Kadan will speak about Ukrainian avant-gardes and modernism, and their perception post-1991 and post-2014, as well as the (im)possibility of a “national avant-garde” and what looking at the avant-garde through a decolonial lens would mean.

post presents: Art, Resistance, and New Narratives in Response to the War in Ukraine is co-organized with the Polish Cultural Institute New York and cosponsored by the James Gallery at CUNY. Informative support is provided by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

Promotional support is provided by the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University.

The Museum of Modern Art
The Celeste Bartos Theater
4 West 54 Street (between Fifth and Sixth avenues)
New York, NY 10019
United States

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