The exhibition Liutyi / Лютий / February is a sign of solidarity with Ukrainian artists and cultural workers. On the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in violation of international law and ten years after the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the situation for the attacked country in this ongoing conflict is extremely difficult, with serious consequences for all Ukrainians who either must cope with everyday life in war or are now in exile.
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As part of an open call organized by Office Ukraine, Ukrainian artists and students of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from Ukraine were invited to submit works from the realities of their lives for the exhibition project. In collaboration with Veronika Dirnhofer (Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts / Drawing class) and the Ukrainian curator Lizaveta German  (co-founder of the Kyiv gallery the Naked Room and co-curator of the Ukrainian pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2022), 21 Ukrainian artists were selected from the approximately 60 applications to exhibit their works from 20 to 24 February 2024 at the Exhibit Eschenbachgasse( Eschenbachgasse 11 | Ecke Getreidemarkt, 1010, Vienna) to present their works.
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Opening: Tuesday, 20 February 2024 at 18:00
Opening hours 21 to 24 February 2024 from 12:00 – 18:00
Commemoration event: Saturday, 24 February 2024 at 18:00, 18:30 performance by Oksana Maslova
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Participating artists
Yehor Antsyhin, Olga Blagov (Blagoveshchenska), Yelyzaveta Burtseva, Julia Dubovyk, Lucy Ivanova, Veronika Kaliberda, Ed Kolodiy, Danylo Kovach, Hélène Litorelle, Polina Makarova, Vera Mantjuk, Oksana Maslova, Maria Pylypenko, Roksolana Rohovska, Margo Sarkisova, Lena Semenenko, Olena Shtepura, Socia Collective, Julia Stakhorska, Anastasiia Vasylchenko Mamay, Ania Zorh.
We would like to thank Veronika Dirnhofer, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the BMKÖS and ERSTE Foundation for their support.

LIUTYI / ЛЮТИЙ / FEBRUARY

Two years of war / Two years of solidarity

Два роки війни / Два роки солідарності

The exhibition Liutyi / Лютий / February is a statement of solidarity with Ukrainian art and culture on the occasion of the second anniversary of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The show with 21 participating artists from Ukraine depicts the various aspects faced by people from a country at war in terms of forced emigration. Memory is one of the exhibition’s thematic focal points. Among other works on the subject,  artistic associations in the form of war diaries due to a radically changed reality and abandoned infrastructure in Ukraine are shown, and the most valuable – be it people or memorabilia – is documented as a concise depiction. 

The examination of traditional motifs of Ukrainian culture, also strongly represented, can be read as a recourse to and reassurance of one’s own identity, oscillating between irony and deliberate pathos. The confrontation with the physicality of human existence fans out the broad spectrum between life and death that is at the heart of every war. Alongside the – still – intact human body, other works show threatened, damaged, and deformed human figures, some of which already seem to be dissolving into the ghostly sphere. 

Landscapes devoid of people refer to the state of nowhere, the transitory in-between on a train journey between home and exile. Sometimes, however, the rift between what is here and what is there also becomes a subtle game with identities that transforms the original cultural horizon into something new.

And what becomes evident when the various works are viewed together in the exhibition: Over the kaleidoscopic narrative between war trauma, resilience, and continuation of life, which results from the various artistic perspectives, spreads a fine veil of exhaustion and the uncanny, but also the spirit of resistance.

© Valerie Maltseva / Yuliia Sudarchykova