“Resurrection” by Petr Smetana was shown at the Biennale Personal Structures Reflection 2022 in Venice.
For the first time after that, the project was presented in the Kyiv Art Gallery. As its initiator and curator recalls Olesya Domaradzka from the Lviv gallery “Green Couch”, she has long admired the Biennale, which takes place in Venice every two years.
“At this time, I seem to enter a paradise where everyone is interested in art and you can see many cool modern works,” she admitted. — Small curatorial proposal for the National Pavilion of Ukraine. They chose Pavlo Makov’s project there. The parallel program of the biennale invited me to make a project. There was no doubt who to choose – it should have been Petro Smetano. He has been exhibited in the gallery since his student years. He held his first personal exhibition here. I believe in this artist because he is talented, deep, raises important topics and at the same time is hardworking.”
Project “Resurrection” Peter Smetana made especially for the Biennale, even taking into account the size of the chosen space. I finished it at the beginning of February. It included four paintings depicting a once elegant, but now dilapidated building.
The inspiration was the tsarist-era locomotive factory “Krayan” in Odesa. It worked successfully in Soviet times, and later it began to decline. It is currently in a terrible state. He appears as the personification of a careless attitude to heritage. The consequences of carelessness and indifference are as devastating as the consequences of war.
“I have been developing the topic of disappearing buildings for a long time. This project is about human carelessness towards what our ancestors created, said Petro Smetana. – I saw this factory with my own eyes. It is very aesthetic, in the Neo-Gothic style, which is close to me. echoes the objects that remained in Lviv after the Polish and Austro-Hungarian eras. Few people care about them. Such buildings should be preserved, perhaps changing their function.”
The film “Resurrection from Ukraine” was also filmed specifically for the project, in which Petro Smetana talks about the concept of the works in the building of the old tram depot in Lviv (which, by the way, was going to be turned into a cultural and artistic space).
“After February 24, I wasn’t sure if we would be able to bring him to Venice,” recalls Olesya Domaradzka. — With the Association of Gallerists, I collected signatures on cultural sanctions against Russia. I asked the organizers whether Russia would be represented. I convinced them that it was necessary, and in the end, they answered that there would not be representatives of Russia there. We sent the work to Venice.”
The exhibition was opened at the beginning of April. It lasted seven months – and during that time it was in demand, many people visited it.
“The guests were mainly interested in what is actually happening in Ukraine. Even more than art itself. And telling about it became our mission, Olesya Domaradzka said. — It is interesting that the works were perceived as written after February 24. . The project seems to talk about war. Shows ruined architecture. It is about cultural heritage, life, death, resurrection. It stood out against the background of other projects. And if at the beginning of February it seemed to us that he was too pessimistic, then later we realized that another would be inappropriate.”
When: until March 5, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (cash desk until 4:30 p.m.), every day except Mon. and Thurs.
Where: Kyiv Art Gallery, str. Tereshchenkovska, 9
Ticket price: UAH 100 (concessional ticket — UAH 50).
Kyiv is military: a series of photographic works by Serhiy Poznanskyi is being demonstrated in the capital. Thanks to the author’s technique, the artist conveys not only the dramatic changes in the image of his native city, but also the light it emits, despite all the challenges.
Maria Kataeva
