PinchukArtCentre Presented Works by Lesia Khomenko and Oleksiy Sai During a Special YES Gathering
On February 24, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and Yalta European Strategy (YES) held a special YES Gathering on occasion of the 4th anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The event brought together leading political figures, government officials, military representatives, experts, and parliamentarians from Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States for an open discussion about the state of the war in Ukraine, prospects for its conclusion, and Ukraine’s place in the future security architecture of Europe.
As part of the event, PinchukArtCentre presented an exhibition featuring three works created by Ukrainian contemporary artists and artificial intelligence. Oleksiy Sai showcased his installation Change or Die, previously presented during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The neon sculpture delivers a clear message to political leaders and the international community. It serves as a reminder that the only way to survive and prevail is to change, evolve, and become stronger — only under such conditions can peace for Ukraine be achieved. According to the artist, the idea behind the message was more important than the form itself: when developing the project, he first thought about what to say, and only then — how to say it. +
Among the works presented at the meeting was also Lesia Khomenko’s Radical Approximation — a painting based on real footage seen through a sniper scope during a military operation in Bakhmut.
If before I could only imagine what a sniper sees, then with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the abundance of documentary material available online, I can now see every detail of a military operation
The artist used a frame showing a Russian soldier as a tiny white dot on a dark gray background. She magnified the image to its maximum scale, recreating the figure in life size. The image was painted across four square canvases, separated by a cross-shaped gap exactly replicating the view from a sniper scope.
In addition, one of the works presented at the special YES gathering was a film created by artificial intelligence. It depicts a possible future scenario for Europe — a Russian drone attack on the capitals of EU member states.
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Photo: @VictorPinchukFoundation_YES special mtg/Oleksandr Pilyugin