Zurab Tsereteli and a prehistoric stone statue to attend this year’s Grand Sculptural Salon
On March 3 the Ukrainian House will see the opening of the Grand Sculptural Salon 2009. The exhibit will remain open for visitors on March 4 to 15, the Ukrainsky chas press center reports.
It will be recalled that the Grand Sculptural Salon, a part of the Art Kyiv project, displays the art of modern-day Ukrainian sculptors along with world-famous pieces of plastic art. This spring will see a third Grand Sculptural Salon. The exhibit’s special guest will be Zurab Tsereteli, a universally acclaimed sculptor, the author of more than a hundred monumental works. The central exposition will consist of Ukraine’s largest collection of primeval monumental sculptures belonging to different cultures and time spans—from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages. About 40 1.5-ton exhibits will be brought to the Ukrainian House from three major historical and ethnographic museums of Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Kyiv.
Visitors will also be able to see some masterpieces of world avant-garde by Alberto Giacometti, Hans Arp, and Henry Moore, as well as the best works of contemporary Ukrainian sculptors. The exhibit’s area is about 4,000 square meters.
(Sometimes we do not even know what wealth we are living with,) Ukrainian House director Natalia Zabolotna says, commenting on the choice of ancient sculptures as the salon’s main attraction. (This exposition at the Ukrainian House will be the largest and the most mystic one. It will reflect the chronology of the sculptural plastic art. Well-known world masters and our compatriots were and still are drawing inspiration from Scythian sculpture.
“Oleksandr Arkhypenko is an illustrious example of this. As for Tsereteli, he has already confirmed his participation in the Sculptural Salon. He is going to bring his sculptures to Kyiv. Naturally, he is a master of monumental art and his works are rather heavy and difficult to transport, but we will still receive some very large items. This has already been agreed upon. We would like our salon to attract the attention of not only experts but also ordinary art buffs. However, if an individual is an admirer of art, it is difficult to call him or her ordinary.)
