A Topical Collection

Following her announcement about a new direction in her work, that is, work with contemporary art, Liudmyla Bereznytska, owner of Kyiv-based L-Art Gallery, has yet again confirmed the respectable status of contemporary art with a display of her personal collection of works by contemporary Ukrainian artists.

The 1990s proved quite dramatic for contemporary Ukrainian art. Although a new generation of artists appeared, offering a new, in fact revolutionary for those days, artistic program, they found neither support nor recognition in their homeland. Projects depended on foreign aid, and scores of paintings by celebrated artists ended up bought by foreign collectors or institutions. Thus a sizeable layer of Ukrainian culture yet again ended up abroad. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that Ukraine itself did not and still does not have a system for keeping works of contemporary art in museums, for which reason they are now to be found in private collections only. Liudmyla Bereznytska is one of the few collectors of contemporary Ukrainian art. In those days, she was professionally involved with the art of the Soviet period, but realized the unquestionable esthetics and historical value of contemporary art. Ms. Bereznytska is confident in the investment potential of contemporary Ukrainian art, since there have been cases when the price of some paintings increased many times over within a short period. By displaying her collection, the owner of the L-Art Gallery hopes to arouse the interest of traditional art collectors, who are so far wary of investing in contemporary art.

Works by the most celebrated contemporary Ukrainian artists such as Oleksandr Hnilytsky, Yury Solomko, Vasyl Tsaholov, Oleksandr Roytburd, Kyrylo Protsenko, Viktor Pokydanets, to name but a few, are on show. Some works are displayed for the first time, such as Oleksandr Hnilytsky’s Teletubby. However, many works are quite familiar to the public, in particular the photo series by Yury Solomko featuring geographical maps painted on the human body. The exhibition opened on November 7 and will last until the end of November.