First Ivan Marchuk exhibit in Dnipropetrovsk

A retrospective exhibit, “Ivan Marchuk: Yesterday, Today…, Always,” has been opened in Dnipropetrovsk’s gallery Artsvit. The city can see the prominent master’s pictures for the first time. Ivan Marchuk is today the only Ukrainian painter to be admitted to the Golden Guild of the Rome-based International Academy of Modern Art, and in 2007 the British newspaper Daily Telegraph put his name on the list of the Top 100 Living Geniuses who create a multidimensional image of today’s world and determine, ahead of time, the trends and prospects of postindustrial civilization. The master’s oeuvre has been fascinating audiences for almost half a century. “Dnipropetrovsk was for a long time a city in eastern Ukraine, where I had not yet held exhibits. I’d exhibited in Donetsk and Chernihiv and wished so much to exhibit in Dnipropetrovsk. It was interesting for me to display my works in this city, and I was waiting for an invitation to exhibit here,” the master said at the Dnipropetrovsk exhibit opening.

A master remains a master under any circumstances. Ivan Marchuk was enchanted by Dnipro region landscapes. “When I was riding on a train to Dnipropetrovsk, I could not take my eyes off the window. It was a real winter in Kyiv, but here, near the railroad, it was a real autumn. It    is my most favorite period of the autumn, when tree branches are already free of leaves and you can see the earth through them. And if I had had to get off the train at any point of the road, I would have immediately begun to paint a landscape with pleasure,” he says.

The exhibit “Ivan Marchuk: Yesterday, Today…, Always” was opening to the music of contemporary Ukrainian composers played by the master’s daughter Bohdana Pivnenko, a well-known violinist, Meritorious Artiste of Ukraine, and the pianist Iryna Starodub. “It was a true European-level performance,” Dnipropetrovsk-based writer Lesia Stepovychka said, sharing her impressions. “Ivan Marchuk is a person of the world, for, as is known, he lived and worked abroad for many years – in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Working in the contest of contemporary artistic culture, he at the same time has not lost his Ukrainian coloring which organically fits in with contemporary art trends. Marchuk’s pictures look like intricate colored pieces of embroidering for which Ukrainians are distinguished. At last, such a well-known master has visited our city. His exhibit is a major cultural event in Dnipropetrovsk.” Incidentally, admission to this exhibit is free. The exposition will last for more than a month – until January 24, 2015.