From Milan to Buenos Aires protests against Russia’s invasion continue on all continents.
In response to the conflict, several art workers worldwide condemn Putin’s attack voicing their support for Ukraine and asking for peace.
In the past few hours Russian soldiers stormed Ukraine from all angles, destroying everything in their path while en route to Kyiv. And now, with the war in full swing, art once again finds itself in danger.
One of the many architectural casualties is the Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum, in its namesake city northwest of the capital. Russian soldiers burned the museum, which was home to 25 works by 20th-century folk artist Maria Prymachenko, to the ground.
Some cultural workers and organizations, like Moscow’s Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, have ceased operations and made public anti-war statements.
The Garage Museum said it will “stop work on all exhibitions until the human and political tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine has ceased”.
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Photo © David X Prutting © BFA.com.
Fashion designer Giorgio Armani held his recent catwalk show at Milan Fashion Week in silence."What could I do?" Armani said following the show, according to the Evening Standard. "I could only signal my heartbreak for the tragedy through the silence."
From Giorgio Armani Instagram Page.
Marina Abramovic has posted a video declaring solidarity with Ukraine following Russia’s invasion last Thursday. She cites Yugoslavia, her birthplace, as “a country which thrived under cultures from the West and Russia from the East.”
About the invasion, she says: “I have full solidarity with the Ukrainian people on this impossible day. An attack on Ukraine is an attack on all of us. It’sIt’s an attack on humanity and has to be stopped.”
New York’s Metropolitan Opera said it will not work with artists and groups allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin, NPR reports.
The project conceived by Raimundas Malasauskas for the Pavilion of the Russian Federation at La Biennale di Venezia - 59th International Art Exhibition (23 April - 27 November 2022) would have been titled "914", but in the light of the war just begun, it will no longer be realized.
Raimundas Malasauskas, the curator, with Kirill Savchenkov and Alexandra Sukhareva, the artists invited to develop the exhibition project on 'transition', have, in fact, resigned.
Raimundas Malasauskas, on Sunday 27 February, writes on Instagram:
Pavilion of the Russian Federation at La Biennale di Venezia_©Marco Cappelletti
There will be a Ukrainian Pavilion at the forthcoming Triennale Milano International Exhibition.“War will not triumph over dialogue and interaction”, a post on Triennale Milano Instagram page stated.
“Triennale Milano intends to guarantee the presence of the Ukranian Pavilion, together with the pavilions of the many other countries that have signed up for the next International Exhibition.
We intends to promote a series of events in preparation for the Ukrainian Pavilion. These events will be presented at a public meeting on March 9, 2022 at Triennale.”
Dmitry Vilensky, founder of Russian collective Chto Delat?, noted that more than seven thousand artists and cultural workers had signed a declaration against the war.
Artist Faith Holland asked the state-backed Multimedia Art Museum (MAMM) in Moscow to remove her work “Touchscreen” (2020) from its ongoing international biennial, Art for the future; artist Victoria Marchenkova announced that her solo exhibition at a Moscow gallery had been delayed until the end of the war. “Please let’s save the world all together,” wrote Marchenkova on her site. “STOP THE WAR.”
***
Cover image: Architectural rendering of the Ukraine Pavilion by ФОРМА_Courtesy the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, The Naked Room, and Borys Filonenko.
comment