The Art of Ukraine

Ukraine’s artistic tradition is inseparable from its turbulent history, according to this illuminating survey from art historian Lozhkina (Permanent Revolution). Beginning the account in the 1880s, Lozhkina explores how a gradual “awakening of a national consciousness” saw modernist artists integrating “folkloric and historical themes” into their work; how the Stalinist decades of the mid-1920s to the 1950s were dominated by state-approved “socialist realist” art; and how Stalin’s death spurred artists’ depictions of “young, bright intellectuals” who symbolized a hopeful future. The Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse fueled the Ukrainian new wave art movement and its “postmodern, large-scale, figurative paintings, overflowing with quotations and... mythological themes,” while the 2013 Euromaidan protests compelled artists, photojournalists, and average citizens to capture the uprising’s “saddest and ugliest moments” and share them on social media. Concluding the survey with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as artists channeled a “splintering” sense of self, the author distinguishes Ukrainian art from the Russian artistic tradition it’s often lumped in with. In the process, Lozhkina draws out the many expressive functions of art: a forum through which to negotiate and shape identity, a brand of political influence, and a means of communicating with the world. This gives welcome due to the cultural legacy of a vibrant yet beleaguered nation. Illus. (July)