{"id":33835,"date":"2025-01-28T11:42:40","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T11:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mck.krakow.pl\/wystawy\/ukraina-wzajemne-spojrzenia\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T08:52:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:52:26","slug":"ukraina-wzajemne-spojrzenia","status":"publish","type":"wystawy","link":"https:\/\/mck.krakow.pl\/en\/wystawy\/ukraina-wzajemne-spojrzenia\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine. A different angle on neighbourhood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Ukraine has been independent for thirty years. It is also close to us, bold, multi-faceted and surprising. Equally so is the exhibition Ukraine. A different angle on neighbourhood, organised at the International Cultural Centre. Works that say so much about our closest neighbour have never been presented to the Polish audience before. This different angle on neighbourhood, where mutual perceptions of each other come into play, brings the two countries even closer together.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A joint Polish-Ukrainian analysis of cultural and historical narratives referred to as \u201cUkrainian myths\u201d encourages a reflection on contiguity of Ukraine and Poland, their history and their present in the perspective of neighbourhood and mutual understanding. They give an idea of the viability of myths and their contemporary incarnations, making it possible to trace the canon of Ukrainian identity, but also to take a closer look at today’s Ukraine. The narrative also collides sporadically with Russia and the Soviet Union, occasionally with Turkey and the Islamic world. It is illustrated with works of Ukrainian and Polish art; Orthodox, Uniate and Catholic; pre-modern, 20th-century and contemporary artworks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013\u00a0What prompts us to broaden our knowledge about Ukraine? Do we reach for books by Ukrainian authors, many of which have been published in Poland in recent years, to understand our closest neighbours? I believe that many of us do so, but to support this, it is important to supplement literary or historical texts with a visual story. When preparing the exhibition together with the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv, we wished to present to the Polish public a visual self-portrait of our neighbours and the contemporary cultural context of mutual Polish-Ukrainian relations<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 explains Agata W\u0105sowska-Pawlik, director of the ICC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The role of the exhibition is at the same time educational and intended to promote the culture and artists of Ukraine, who are little known in Poland. The exhibition showcases the most outstanding artists, whose work is related to the main stages of the development of art, from the late 17th century to the present day. On display are the works of the Ukrainian bard Taras Shevchenko, the Polish masters such as J\u00f3zef Brandt, Jan Stanis\u0142awski, Leon Wycz\u00f3\u0142kowski, and the Ukraine-born Russian realist Ilya Repin, who was fascinated with Jan Matejko\u2019s painting. The exhibition features Repin\u2019s paintings: Ukrainian Peasant House and Portrait of a Laughing Cossack, which is a sketch for the Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, a 1890 painting that has become a national icon in Ukraine.
\u00a0 These 19th-century canvases are juxtaposed with the works of the early 20th-century avant-gardists \u2013 Heorhi Narbut, Victor Palmov, Lev Kramarenko \u2013 and contemporary artists, such as those using the language of pop-art, social art, Western advertising, and Soviet propaganda: Oleh Tistol, Roman Minin, reflective artist Vlada Ralko or the \u201cOpen Group\u201d Association, which represented Ukraine at the Venice Biennale in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the first time such a representative selection of Ukrainian art has been on display in Poland. At its core are the works from the most important Ukrainian collection \u2013 the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv, accompanied by the works from other Ukrainian institutions: the National Reserve “Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra”, the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema in Kyiv and the National Museum “Kyiv Art Gallery”, and from Polish collections: National Museums in Krakow, Warsaw and Wroclaw, Arsenal Gallery in Bia\u0142ystok and the Jagiellonian Library, as well as Polish and Ukrainian private collections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition is complemented by film materials, photographs, posters, maps, and sculptures. An intriguing accent comes with the magnetic clothes by the fashion designer Tomasz Armada, stylistically referring to the attires worn by Cossacks and Sarmatians. The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive 250-page catalogue, working as a guide to the history of Ukrainian art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Polish-Ukrainian dialogue has been present in the activities of the ICC from the very beginning. At the conference Nations and Stereotypes, organised in 1993, the mutual (unfortunately most often negative) perceptions of Poles and Ukrainians were discussed. Both historical and contemporary issues were addressed in exhibitions organised at the ICC Gallery. Exhibitions such as\u00a0The Borderlands Rediscovered. The Common Heritage of Poland and Ukraine<\/em>\u00a0(2005) or\u00a0Lviv, 24th June 1937. City, Architecture, Modernism<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2017) helped to make a wide audience aware of the importance of efforts undertaken to save the shared heritage, and the exhibition\u00a0The Myth of Galicia<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>(2014) confronted mythical ideas with historical facts. The 2016 exhibitions\u00a0Maidan Through the Lens of Jakub Szymczuk<\/em><\/a>\u00a0visualised an extraordinary story about Maidan in Kyiv, which was the greatest shock in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall, while\u00a0Ukraine. Waiting for a hero. Kostyrko, Ravski<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>emphasised the interaction of art created in front of our eyes with current events in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition was open from September 17, 2021 to January 16, 2022 at the ICC Gallery at Rynek G\u0142\u00f3wny 25 in Krakow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Curators<\/div>
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Oksana Barszynowa<\/div>\n
Exhibition Curator<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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dr \u017banna Komar<\/div>\n
ICC Curator<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n
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Curators<\/div>\n \n
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Oksana Barszynowa<\/div>\n
Exhibition Curator<\/div>\n \n
\n Deputy Director of the National Art Museum of Ukraine (NAMU), art historian, and curator. She specializes in contemporary art and the history of Ukrainian art in the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st. She co-created the exhibition concept for contemporary art at NAMU and is the author of numerous articles on the history of Ukrainian art. <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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dr \u017banna Komar<\/div>\n
ICC Curator<\/div>\n \n
\n Art and architecture historian and curator. She works at the ICC Institute of European Heritage. She has prepared exhibitions such as “Ukraine. Mutual Views” (2021\/2022), “Architecture of Independence in Central Europe” (2018\/2019), and “Lviv, June 24, 1937. City, Architecture, Modernism” (2017\/2018). She is the author of the book “The Third City of Galicia. Stanis\u0142aw\u00f3w and Its Architecture in the Period of Galician Autonomy” (Krakow 2008). <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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