Fragments of a reality that once was.
Opening: Thu, March 14, 2023, from 6 p.m.
Exhibition tour with Galina Dekova, 6:00 p.m.
Welcome: Eva Birkenstock, Heinrich Brötz 7:00 p.m.
Introduction: Galina Dekova
Lecture by Yuri Schadenman (in English): 7:30 p.m
With Volodymyr Budnikov, Mykola Filatov, Sergey Geta, Evgeni Gordiets, Eduard Gorochovskij, Ilya Kabakov, Andrij Kocka, Yuri Schadenman and Andrey Silvestrov, Jurij Luckevič, Petro Markovič, Anatolij Mašarov, Daniel Mitljanskij, Vera Morozova, Halyna Neledva, Arkadij Petrov, Larisa Rezun-Zvezdočetova, Viktor Ryžich, Oleksandr Tyšler and Leonid Vojcechov
The Ludwig Forum for International Art houses around 1,800 paintings, sculptures and graphics from the former Soviet Union as well as Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe that Irene and Peter Ludwig collected between 1979 and 1996. Fragments of a reality that once was marks the beginning of a re-examination, relocation and research of parts of this collection that were inventoried in the past under the heading “Art from the USSR” and about which there is little information to date. In addition, these works and artistic positions are to be re-contextualized along current art and cultural studies discourses and thus the Western view of “Eastern European art” is to be critically questioned. This first exhibition of the research project of the same name examines a collection of artistic works that are connected to Ukraine in different ways. It attempts to revise vague categorizations, terminologies and contextualizations - be they geographical, political or art historical - in order to do justice to the diversity and complexity of a region that is not least characterized by tension and violence.
The fact that we have to change our viewing habits is already evident in the first room of the exhibition, which presents works from the 1970s and 80s that, at first glance, seem to belong to the classical modernism of the 19th and early 20th centuries. They were created in response to the doctrine of socialist realism, which stipulated that the arts should only serve the progress of socialist society. Against this background, the seemingly anachronistic paintings of rural idylls such as Family in Donbass (1970) by Arkadij Petrov and Gurzuf (1972) by Jurij Luckevič unfold their emancipatory potential. The escape into the private sphere and to remote places, beyond the reach of the central government, was characteristic of the subversive undermining of art doctrine. In a conscious departure from the official effort to unify all artistic production under the auspices of communism, the retreat into the private sphere as well as the resort to national-patriotic motifs within the individual Soviet republics were among the typical forms of artistic resistance, albeit defensive.
The exhibition also addresses the legacy of the “Russian avant-garde”. On view are paintings by Oleksandr Tyšler from the 1960s and 70s, which reveal the universal character of the avant-garde and the subsequent metaphysical-figurative painting of the early 20th century, which with its aesthetic and revolutionary programs became an important point of reference for many subsequent artists in the Soviet era became. The large-format paintings Fishing Season (1989) and End of Performance (1987) by Leonid Vojcechov are again exemplary of a visual language that was widespread in contemporary Ukrainian art at the end of the 1980s, which, among other things, ironically deals with the Soviet Union, which was already in the process of dissolution.
Games (1983) by Eduard Gorochovskij can also be seen in this light The starting point of the series is the photographic portrait of a noble couple. The artist places the figures, frozen in their pose, in different contemporary situations, where they play their role impassively, whether as athletes, flight attendants or at a press conference. The “total and absolute ignorance of the people in the old photo towards the fact that they have become the subject of a complex, sophisticated and invented game,” as Ilya Kabakov wrote, is always an expression of rigid social conventions that the artist questions. The critical examination of traditional role models is also reflected in the assemblage Nature and Fantasy (1990) by Larisa Rezun-Zvezdočetova. The latter, together with Leonid Vojcechov and Yuri Schadenman, was part of the unofficial art scene in Odessa in the 1980s, which organized actions and exhibitions in private studios, apartments or in nature. Connected to this art scene was the Ukrainian-born Ilya Kabakov, co-founder of Moscow Conceptualism, who in his work In the Corner (1977–1988) addressed the emptiness, which had great symbolic meaning given the omnipotence of the state and hardly any social freedom. In her video work Odessa. Fragment 205 (2015), Yuri Schadenman and Andrey Silvestrov take up the history of Odessa and questions of identification as Ukrainians through two important artists: Valentin Khrushch and Oleg “Pepper” Petrenko. The exhibition also documents other actions and protagonists who were involved in the unofficial art scene in Odessa in the 1980s.
The different artistic encounters in and with Ukraine in the Ludwig Collection make it clear that we are faced with the challenge of always looking back at fragments of a reality that once was . Instead of clear categorizations – such as conformist and non-conformist art – or national attributions, gaps and ambiguities also come into play in the contextualizing inventory. The research project, which aims to re-explore the collection holdings, which are generally referred to as “Eastern European art”, brings into focus previously little researched and rarely shown collections that Peter and Irene Ludwig acquired behind the Iron Curtain. The organizational systems and narratives associated with them should be subject to revision, towards an alternative terminology, and in the sense of a decolonization of historiography, in order to take into account in particular the diversity of the individual cultural areas within the former USSR and the other former Eastern Bloc countries.
Curated by Galina Dekova
Research Volunteer Art Museums NRW “Collection Focus: Eastern Europe”
With the generous support of the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Accompanying program
Thursday, March 14, 2023, 6:00 p.m.
Exhibition tour with curator Galina Dekova
Thursday, March 14, 2023, 7:30 p.m., Space
Lecture by Yuri trageman Yuri trageman (born 1963 in Odessa, Ukraine), artist and writer, is part of the Moscow Conceptualist movement. He has taken part in housing exhibitions in Moscow and Odessa since 1982. In 2005 he was awarded the Andrei Belyi Literary Prize. From 2008 to 2010 he was a member of the artist groups “Kapiton” and “Corbusier”. In 2011 he took part in the 68th Venice International Film Festival with the film Birmingham Ornament (A. Silvestrov/Y. Damitman). Leidman lives and works in Berlin.
Sunday, March 17, 2024, 3 p.m.
Curator tour with Galina Dekova
Meeting point: 6 p.m. in the entrance area, costs: €2.00 plus museum entry
Thursday, July 11th, 2024
Curator's tour with Galina Dekova
Meeting point: 6 p.m. in the entrance area, costs: €2.00 plus museum entry
Image: Leonid Vojcechov, End of the performance , 1987, oil on canvas, 144 x 200 cm, Ludwig Collection, on loan from the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation. Photo: Ludwig Forum.
Booklet accompanying the exhibition (PDF)
General information
Arrival & contact
Ludwig Forum
Jülicher Straße 97-109
52070 Aachen
Germany
