Night at the Museum

The lights in the corners were providing only dim illumination, so the visitors were given lanterns to help them see better the pictures. The soft music by DJ Mishukoff filled the museum. This is the way Ukraine’s National Art Museum received visitors in the evening of May 16 in the framework of the “Night at the Museum” project. It is the first time this event was held in Ukraine on the occasion of the International Museum Day, marked on May 18. Ukraine adopted this tradition from Europe, where on the eve of the holiday 2,000 establishments in 40 countries organize similar actions. They have one purpose—to popularize museums and increase the number of day visitors.

“Oleh Chorny and Hennadii Khmaruk’s media-video-art-project ‘Kryk’(Scream) is displayed on the first floor. It’s unique because the artists have selected music and screen action for Edward Munch’s classical ‘Scream’ series,” says Maryna Skyrda, deputy general director of the National Art Museum. “The exhibit ‘Burglars’ by Roman Zhuk (a Ukrainian who lives in Amsterdam) is on the second floor. Burglary, redistribution, and violence for the sake of art are the main topics of his pictures. Zhuk’s works seem to be created on computer, but in reality they were painted in oil. Most of the characters in the pictures wear stocking masks, which make the people featureless. In general, the ‘Burglars’ cycle reveals the egocentrism of an artist, who puts himself in the place of stolen valuables.”

Only after seeing the artist’s paintings with his/her own eyes can one understand what Skyrda meant. The main characters of the pictures are mainly men wearing masks and reaching for the valuables, trying to pick door locks, or simply hiding from someone in dark corridors. In a nutshell, they are burglars.

“This exhibit fits the format of the event in its concept, because it creates a wonderful mood and atmosphere. Besides, Zhuk has a correct understanding of postmodernism,” said Gabriele Zaidite, the cultural attach at the Lithuanian Embassy in Ukraine. “I saw his exhibit in daytime as well, but one can make several rounds of it with these small lanterns and each time reveal new story lines. And this large number of visitors indicates that people are interested in this kind of events and need them.”

In fact, the darker it grew outside, the more people were drawn to the museum’s increasingly enigmatic atmosphere. Those who did not want to leave simply sat down on wooden benches in the center of the museum rooms and studied the pictures from a distance. Skyrda is convinced that these kinds of things attract active and young people, and the museum can attract them only with something extraordinary. At night the pictures are perceived, both literally and figuratively, in a different light, the atmosphere is also different than during daytime, giving the visitors a chance to complete the parts they do not see in semidarkness.

“This tradition has existed for 10 years in the world, and in the past five years it has been under the patronage of the International Council of Museums,” Skyrda said. “In Ukraine the action was joined by several museums in Kyiv, Odesa, Kirovohrad, and Dnipropetrovsk. The idea to open the museums at night emerged due to a certain problem: they are perceived like conservative establishments attracting people of certain categories (children with parents or elderly people, who come here to contemplate). But a museum is an open space where one can nicely spend one’s free time, so this is a sort of a competition with night clubs and entertainment.

“Last year’s party was a closed one (it was dedicated to the launch of the exhibit of Oleksandra Ekster, a renowned avant-garde artist of the 20th century, and Lilia Pustovit, Ukrainian couturier, created her collection ‘Art-Couture’ based on the artist’s works, whereas this year admission is free. In our opinion, visitors will vote with their feet and show if the tradition will take root in the museum.”

The museum marks its 110th anniversary this year, so all these exhibits are considered to be specially dedicated to the landmark date. In late May the works of the artist Mykola Hlushchenko and the representatives of the 20th-century Odesa art school will be on display here. On Children’s Day the action “Playing in a Museum” will be held here, and the year will end with the exhibit “Impressionism and Ukraine.”

Skyrda pointed out that today the museum has no prospects for development, since only two percent of 40,000 exhibits are on display, while the rest are in the stocks). Therefore, the most important thing that the museum employees expect from the state is greater financial support and new premises for expositions.