Artists taking part in the exhibition: Mirosław Bałka, Tomasz Bielak, Bohdan Bunchak, Katarzyna Krakowiak, Pavlo Kovach jr, Dmytro Kupriyan, Robert Kuśmirowski, Alexander Len, Goshka Macuga, Denys Pankratov, Joanna Piotrowska, Agnieszka Polska, Sofiya Pomogaibo, Max Robotov i Lesia Khomenko, _mediaklub (Max Robotov, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Dmytro Tentiuk, Daria Maiier), Wilhelm Sasnal, Janek Simon, Bohdan Sokur, Monika Sosnowska, Lubomyr Tymkiv, Yurii Vovkohon, Artur Żmijewski

Curator: Waldemar Tatarczuk

Exhibition opening: 2/03/2024 (Saturday), 6:00 p.m.
Where: Galeria Labirynt, ul. ks. J. Popiełuszki 5, Lublin
Exhibition on display: until 5/05/2024 (Tue-Sun, 12:00–7:00 p.m.)
Admission: PLN 8 for regular tickets and PLN 4 for discounted tickets (free admission to the opening)

“This is just an exhibition” and yet another art exhibition will do nothing to change the situation on the frontline. Nor will it change the way the free world perceives the war in Ukraine. It may, however, strike anxiety in the audience, convey at least a trace of the uncertainty that millions of Ukrainians are faced with on a daily basis, living under the spectre of deadly missiles fired by putin’s military.

The exhibition opened on 27 October 2023, yet there were no works on show, only the architecture prepared for their display. The place evoked the atmosphere of an abandoned, gloomy city. It was surrounded by a projection of a sunny, bright blue sky, which faded out from time to time, plunging the exhibition into unnerving darkness. The sky is where missiles and drones come from, bringing death and destruction. But here in Lublin we can feel safe, this war is far away, and further still from Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, New York or Budapest.

As time goes by, it seems even more and more distant. We forget, or try to forget about it. It ceases to be a hot topic for the media and the inhabitants of the free world who are preoccupied with their own problems. But Ukrainians are not indifferent to it – for them it’s a matter of life and death. The same is true for Ukrainian artists, some of whom are fighting in the Ukrainian army and who showed their works in the second installment of this exhibition which opened on 12 January 2024. The show includes, but is not limited to pieces created after 25 February 2022. Some of the soldier-artists have put their artistic endeavours on hold. What matters now is to fight for the country and its bare survival. But what also matters is the preservation of values, including the freedom to create, freedom of speech, and the rights of minorities, which putin claims are a threat to russia.

This is also understood by non-Ukrainian artists who are to join the exhibition in its third installment. Their works will be exhibited against walls with a projection of that clear blue ‘European’ sky. But that sky will also keep fading out, and the works will vanish into the darkness, so as to warn us that the reality that Ukraine has steeped in may become our fate if we don’t help this country fight the evil empire. This is not about inciting fear. Fear is often pushed it into the subconscious or encourages concessions instead of prompting a rational response. This is about rallying support for action and solidarity in the struggle against the evil, against which Ukraine defends not only itself, but us as well.

The exhibition is organized as part of the Kyiv Biennial 23

Accessibility: The exhibition is held on the ground floor. The exhibition is not friendly for visually impaired individuals – the space is dimly lighted. Texts describing the works in large print are available at the entrance. The exhibition is unsuitable to people with sensory hypersensitivity – the lights at the exhibition turn on and off, a loud rumbling and crackling noise can be heard. The exhibition is not suitable for people with motor disability – there are openwork metal elements marked with fluorescent tape throughout the exhibition space. Caution is advised. In the bookshop, you can borrow a wheelchair and earmuffs for free during your stay in the gallery. The silent hours at the exhibition apply on Wednesdays from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. The gallery has 6 portable induction loops.

The opening will be interpreted into Ukrainian, interpretation: Volodymyr Dyshlevuk.

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“It is impossible to repair cracks in a dry layer” is the concluding exhibition of Karina Synytsia’s two-month Lublin Station residency held at the Galeria Labirynt. 

Exhibition opening:
When: 23/02/2024  at 18:00
Where: Galeria Labirynt, Popiełuszki 5, Lublin
Accessibility: The exhibition is held on the ground floor. Mute earmuffs and a trolley can be borrowed free of charge from the bookshop. Quiet hours at the exhibition apply on Wednesdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. The gallery has portable induction loops. The opening is translated into Ukrainian by Volodymyr Dyshlevuk.
Exhibition on display: until 17/03/2024 (Tue–Sun: 12:00–7:00 p.m)
Admission: 8 PLN (free entry for the vernissage)

Curators: Waldemar Tatarczuk, Gabriela Gawęda

The starting point of the exhibition is the artistic practice of the Ukrainian artist Mykhailo Boychuk (1882-1937) and his students known as Boychukists. Boychuk was inspired by Byzantine art and combined its system of imagery with Ukrainian folk art. Together with his students, they wanted to create a single synthetic style of Ukrainian national art. Although their work did not contradict the ideas of the October Revolution of 1917, according to the Communist Party authorities, Boychukists’ style of painting was too independent, too pro-Western, too formalistic. Consequently, Boychuk’s school was deemed as harmful to the Soviet people. He along with his wife Sofia Nalepynska-Boychuk and students Ivan Padalka and Vasyl Sedlar were executed in 1937. 

The exhibition will feature paintings, an animation and photographs that juxtapose the stories of Ukrainian art in the 1920s and 1930s with contemporary times. Synytsia’s large-scale paintings refer to the monumental art of those years. Instead of heroic figures, the artist depicts deserted vast fields. The landscapes she creates are partially realistic and partially imagined representations of the battlefields happening on Ukrainian territory. She replaces the propaganda slogans known from Soviet times with emptiness or messages heard from friends in the army. 

The uncertain future is portrayed by Karina in an insightful way. “It is impossible to repair cracks in a dry layer” alludes to the feelings and doubts raised by news from the war front. The deliberate attacks on civilians during the ongoing Russian invasion in the Ukrainian territories bring us to the thoughts of social repressions in the Soviet Union. How long will the Russian military invasion continue? How to ensure that the memory of a distinct Ukrainian national and cultural identity survives?

Karina Synytsia – artist living and working in Kiev. In 2019 she graduated from the Kharkiv City School of Art with an engineering degree with the specialisation of painter-performer/painter-artist, art teacher. In 2023, she earned a bachelor’s degree in painting from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (NAFAA). The main medium of her work is painting. She also employs animation and uses objects in her work.  Karina frequently depicts the theme of landscape. For her, the typical landscape of her region is a tool which aids her in collecting metaphorical objects or images. She is a resident of Galeria Labirynt as part of the Lublin Station programme.