Ukraine will have its own art biennial, too

About 200 biennials are held throughout the world yearly. Some of them are specialized, including photo or architectural biennials. The Kyiv “Arsenale” will add to the number of those that are concentrated in the museum space; this category includes, in particular, the Whitney Biennial (US) and Tate Biennial (UK) that are hosted by the Whitney Museum of New York and Tate Gallery of London, respectively.

Prominent art manager and author David Elliott (UK-Germany) will be the Kyiv Biennial curator, the director of the Mystetsky Arsenal Natalia Zabolotna will be appointed as the commissioner of the exhibition, Oleksandr Soloviov of Ukraine will act as curator of the special program, while curatorship of theoretical platform will be entrusted to art critic Yekaterina Dyogot from Russia.

The Kyiv Arsenale will be held from May 17 to July 30 next year. Its general theme reads as follows: “The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art.”

Elliott said: “The title is derived from the opening lines of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, a novel about the French Revolution, which the writer pointed out could also refer to any other time or place. Since the beginning of time continuing cycles of birth, vitality, decline and death have accompanied the rise and fall of clans, empires and cultures, often one providing the platform for the next. Yet recently something has changed.

“Previously, prerogative for total destruction lay with either God or Nature, whereas now nuclear holocaust, intended or not, has, along with the rapid increase of global warming, invested humanity not only with the capacity of destroying itself but also all the natural systems that have supported it.

“With knowledge comes responsibility. We have chosen for this exhibition works by artists from many different countries, including those from Ukraine and its fellow CIS states; these works cast a critical eye on contemporary culture with its propensity for promoting the worst and confront it as a means of protecting and celebrating the best.

“The exhibition will be organized around four central sections, none of which, however, will be mutually exclusive. The first, The Restless Spirit, looks at the ways in which we derive strength from beliefs, myths and conceptions of the universe that are not governed by material need; In the Name of Order examines how under the pretext of rationalism authorities attempt to dominate culture through the creation of self-serving hierarchies; Flesh takes the human body, its appetites, desires and limitations as its central theme. The Unquiet Dream, the final section of the exhibition, focuses on nightmares and premonitions of disaster, which we are unable to prevent.”

Our British guest also added: “In my opinion, the international art community’s perception of Ukraine as a post-Soviet nation has outlived its usefulness and become completely obsolete. So my big challenge is to become curator of the Ukrainian biennial and to not only acquaint the world with the Mystetsky Arsenal as a unique new venue it is, but also to offer a perspective on the nation and its art, which can be very valuable for the development of global artistic context.”

The organizers of the biennial propose to hold this artistic fair’s events at various venues of the capital, but the Mystetsky Arsenal will be the main one. The list of participants has not been drawn yet, and the exhibition’s budget is still being outlined: Zabolotna admitted that the Moscow Biennial cost about five million dollars.

Will we see the first Arsenale to take place on such a grand scale, or the organizers’ expectations will remain illusions only? Well, we will know very soon.