Ukraine and art at MAXXI. Unscheduled, the Museum of XXI Century Arts opens today, Thursday 10 March in Rome, its 2022 exhibition season with the exhibition Ukraine. Short stories – Contemporary artists from Ukraine".
The public will thus be able to know 140 Ukrainian artists and their works created for the Imago Mundi Collection in the size 12-10 centimeters. A window and a reconnaissance on Ukrainian art but also a form of aid to the population subjected to bombardments and difficulties of all kinds. In fact, the exhibition will be hosted at the MAXXI until 20 March with a symbolic ticket of 5 euros per person, the proceeds of which will be donated to humanitarian emergency fund in Ukraine constituted by UNHCR, UNICEF and the Red Cross, as well as the proceeds of the museum on Sunday 27 February and Sunday 6 March (over 34.600 euros), informal museum in a note.
Ukraine Short Stories: the collaboration with Imago Mundi
“Art and culture speak a universal language, which unites peoples in the sign of dialogue and rejects all forms of violence. For this reason the National Museum of XXI Century Arts - said the president Giovanna Melandri - in collaboration with the Imago Mundi Foundation, has chosen to open the 2022 exhibition season with the exhibition Ukraine. Short stories, testimony of closeness to the population and the artistic community of the country affected by Putin's aggression”.
Born 10 years ago from an idea by Luciano Benetton, the Imago Mundi Collection is a set of thematic collections that today brings together the works of over 26 established and emerging artists from 163 countries and native communities, with the aim of creating a mapping, as broad as possible, of the different contemporary artistic experiences of our world. Every single country is represented by the creations of established artists and new talents that are commissioned with maximum freedom of expression with the only constraint of the 10 by 12 cm format.
“Ukraine: Short Stories”, ed Solomia Savchuk, Head of Contemporary Art at Mystetskyi Arsenal in Kiev, is one of the thematic collections that was born at a particular moment in Ukrainian history. The jobs are strongly related to events of 2014 with which Ukraine has been forced to contend, and to the profound changes that this country, a delicate crossroads between the Baltic and Black Seas, has undergone in recent years.
Ukraine Short Stories: 140 artists, diversity of styles and techniques
“The exhibition presents 140 works created by young and emerging artists and established authors already present in the most important international museums and galleries who, with strength and passion, reflect a society that is reinventing itself, through instability, ideological and social changes, cruel conflicts , constantly looking for new ways to face history and affirm a new artistic freedom”, explain the creators of the exhibition. The story takes place with various styles and techniques, ranging from optical effects to landscape-sculptures to the magic of 3D.
comments Henry Bossan, artistic director of Imago Mundi Foundation: “In these terrible days, the Imago Mundi Foundation expresses solidarity with the Ukrainian people, its artists, the artistic community and the world of culture in general. It is often remembered that Ukraine expresses in its name the fact of being a borderland, a country "between", which contains several cultures. And today more than ever culture must be a space for dialogue and inclusion, as well as freedom of expression and creation".
From the collection catalogue
The project dedicated to Ukrainian artists involved many famous artists. Alevtina Kakhidze he translated his story and the events experienced by the family into works of art. The problems related to the definition of the individual in contemporary post-Soviet society are the main topic of the "Levitation" project, as well as of the work of Viktor Sydorenko in general. The landscape in “Untitled”, taken from the project “Harborage of a poet” by Vlada Ralko it is characterized by a state of struggle, linked to a continuous and dramatic cycle of births and deaths. Ilya Chichkan has created a work that carries on the project "Monkey Business / Dough", a series of graphic works made with banknotes from different countries of the world. Taya Galagan (Tatiana Gershuni) continues to experiment with 3D images in her portrait "Andrella". The young artist Taras Kovach presented a work taken from his previously exhibited project “Soil Test”.
