“Hope!”, Pavilion of Ukraine at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia

The Ukrainian national pavilion at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, presents a group exhibition entitled “Hope!” featuring a young generation of Ukrainian artists, including Yevgenia Belorusets, Nikita Kadan, Zhanna Kadyrova, Mykola Ridnyi & Serhiy Zhadan, Artem Volokitin, Anna Zvyagintseva and Open Group. The project is organized by the PinchukArtCentre with the support of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.

Ministry of Culture of Ukraine is commissioner. Björn Geldhof, Deputy Artistic Director of the PinchukArtCentre, is the curator of the project.

The Ukrainian national pavilion stands as a model for a new transparent Ukraine reaching out to the world. With this exhibition a young generation of artists voices hopes for Ukraine’s future while confronting the current conflict and the countries recent history.

Cage (2010) by Anna Zvyagintseva embodies the contradictions between freedom and imprisonment, rule of law and lawlessness and strength and fragility. Blind Spot by Ridnyi and Zhadan focusses on the price of violence but resists the narrow narratives that provoke radicalisation of thought. Artem Volokitin reduces in his painting the reality of life to a violent act that moves between hope and fear, between death and the sublime. And Zhanna Kadyrova shows Ukraine as a part of the world, using the recent past to glimpse a future.

Open Group and Yevgenia Belorusets emphasize in opposite ways personal commitment and responsibility of individuals in an armed conflict. Their works reveal the different civil attitudes within society. Open Group deals with young men drafted into the army and their families waiting for their return. Belorusets portrays invisible miners who chose to live and work within the zone of conflict but refuse to take part in the war, trying to “save” their future by daily working in the mines.

Just outside the pavilion, the public sculpture of Nikita Kadan refers to the past and confronts the present situation of war. He deals with questions related to the historification of a conflict and confronts this with Ukraine’s Soviet past.

Organising Institutions::
Ministry of Culture of Ukraine – Commissioner.
PinchukArtCentre with the support of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation – Organizer.

Location: Italy, Venice

The Ukrainian national pavilion, located in a specially designed temporary glass structure on the Riva dei Sette Martiri, on the main waterfront route from Arsenale to Giardini

Crowd. Day.	Spectacle - 1
Synonym for “wait”	The Cage
Difficulties of Profanation	«Сліпа пляма»
"Please don't take my picture! Or they'll shoot me tomorrow."

Zhanna Kadyrova	Open Group
Nikita Kadan	Artists		Artem Volokitin
Yevgenia Belorusets	Mykola Ridnyi & Serhiy Zhadan		Anna Zvyagintseva

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Hope! - Pavilion of Ukraine

Attention to the media!

Dear colleagues!

In order to save your time the art center team has collected all the necessary materials on the Ukrainian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale:

• Press release on the Ukrainian pavilion
• Press release on the concert of "Okean Elzy"
• Booklet of the exhibition
• Logo of the exhibition "Hope!"
• Portraits of the artists.

Later following the same link you will find photos of works and the pavilion.