Staging the Ukrainian Avant-Garde of the 1910s and 1920s

The exhibition represented Ukrainian avant-garde art of the first two decades of the 20th century in its embodiment for the theatrical stage. The organizers of the “Staging the Ukrainian Avant-Garde of the 1910s and 1920s” has achieved an impossible feat – they recreated the motion and eccentricity of almost century-old performances in an unconventional way: through the theatrical costumes, pictures, and samples of composition and design of the stage, brimming with the explosive dynamics of the artistic avant-garde.

Overall 125 unique sketches were transferred from the repository of the Theatre, Music, and Cinema History Museum in Kyiv to New York. The collection is unique. It does not duplicate the already existing designs, but offers a new focus on presenting the best achievements of modern Ukrainian theater in the first decades of the 20th century. The impressive assembly includes artwork by Matvii Drak, Alexandra Exter, Marko Epshtein, Kost Yeleva, Borys Kosarev, Vasyl Krychevsky, Favst Lopatynsky, Anatol Petrytsky, Maia Symashkevych, Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov, Nisson Shyfrin, and Valentyn Shkliaiev.

Every costume sketch is a plot in itself. The artistic idea seems to live in the motion. Renaissance, Ukrainian Baroque, Futurism, Cubism, Constructivism – all had been melted into an individually designed work of art, the costume or stage design, and thus were becoming an equal participant of a modern theatrical spectacle.

The sketches convey this independent movement in space by overlapping the geometrical planes in a complicated costume, by color combination and by tone transitions (“Assyrian Dances” and “Mephisto” by Vadym Meller). The costumes “come alive” thanks to the special choreographic posture of the figures captured in the moment of a relative equilibrium (the sketch by Shkliaiev and Symashkevych of Scribe costume for the play by Marko Kropyvnytsky They Made Fools of Themselves). They also inherit the dynamics of light reflecting from aluminum and bronze details (the sketch by Khvostenko-Khvostov of two Sentinel costumes for The Love for Three Oranges play by Carlo Gozzi) and refracting in the multi-plane arrangement of the costume.

The artists had made a stunning breakthrough in the artistic interpretation of Ukrainian national images in the new theater. Works by Kosarev for the Marko in Hell tragicomedy by Ivan Kocherha are still eloquent today, not having lost any of its tongue-in-cheek, courageous, and cheerful mood. The Cossacks by Yeleva combine playfulness and audacity. The constructivist solution by Petrytsky in the costume sketches for The Catacombs by Lesia Ukrainka addresses to the sacred horizon of Ukrainian culture.

Anatol Petrytsky and Vadym Meller, the founders of two major schools of Ukrainian theat-rical visual art, are represented by their most distinct and recognizable works. Petrytsky had laid the foundation for the expressive national design in theater performances. The Cry of the Captives – a sketch of the interior painting at the Kozelets theater – interprets Ukrainian history and brings to mind the images of Cossack duma and other songs. The Harlequinade is equally carnivalistic and visionary in its artistic merits.

The exhibition’s documentary core is contained at a rectangular hall, in the installations, “Berezil” darkroom pictures, mock scenes for the plays Gas and Hello on the 477 wave, slideshows, and even a 13-minute film based on the play Gas. Here is the triumph of art that is responsible for its viewers and for the future of society. Here is its defeat in the wake of provincialism and vernacularity of today. Here is the tragedy of modern Ukraine – unable to overcome its colonial complexes without the living water of a new art, which had been taken away and destroyed ruthlessly by the Soviet system.

This exhibition arises as an undisputed success of its instigators, organizers, curators, sponsors, catalog compilers, and all members of the highly professional Ukrainian Museum staff. The event caused a great resonance in the life of Ukrainian community in America. Art brings together and builds a dialog between different people.

The artistic language, built by Ukrainian Avant-Garde of the 1910s and 1920s has lost neither its emotion nor creativity. This language discovers, and reciprocates generously a unique artistic synthesis of the spirit of its time, national tradition, creative freedom, and unbreakable human essence.