DIFFERENT PLACES 2

The National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv
opening: 27th November, 5;30 PM
the exhibition is open until 1st March 2026

The National Art Museum of Ukraine opens the second part of the exhibition project Different Places which will be available for viewing from November 27, 2025 to March 1st, 2026. The first part of the exhibition was presented in the museum this summer. While the previous part included artworks created before 2022, the current exhibition consists of artworks created between 2022 and 2025, during the full-scale war. They carry its direct or indirect mark – both in terms of artistic practice and audience’s response.

The exhibition is the meeting of artists from Ukraine and Poland that are connected by shared time, but divided by the surrounding reality. For the Ukrainian creators, war is their everyday life. Not a topic, but the starting point; not a context, but the background for everything – especially for those who serve in the military or work as volunteers in the frontline regions. Their works are the testimony for what surrounds them, but also their own experiences and emotions.

Polish artists speak from a completely different place – from a peaceful country, without direct danger. Their works reflect what can be done in a place without war, where the awareness of it is present but not directly visible. They gain a new meaning in the context of the exhibition – as an echo, a counterpoint, a memory of something that is constantly present in Ukraine, but stays somewhere behind the horizon at the same time.

The project does not seek a common denominator, nor does it try to compare experiences – the realities we live in are too different. Regardless of our will, they influence our way of thinking and emotions, as well as find their reflection in art. The exhibition allows us to see what is right next to us – no simplifying, no hierarchy, in its full complexity.

The title Different Places refers to the Different Trains composition by Steve Reich, combining parallel life trajectories in different realities. Similar to Reich, it is about how the place of one’s being determines their experience.

For the museum, this exhibition does not only aim to guarantee the prospects of further work, artwork presentation or initiating discussion for the artists connected to Ukraine’s Defence Forces. It is also an opportunity to create a relationship with the museum’s collection – invisible for the audience because of its physical absence, but present through visual references, indirect allusions or literal linkage.

The project is also a tale of the present in which art history is co-created by those who are fighting or supporting the country voluntarily.
An artist at war, an artist despite war – it is a topic that appears in the exhibition in various aspects. Diverse media are presented, but painting and other traditional forms occur rarely. There are less formal experiments and more documenting, contemplating, witnessing and analysing the changed sound and visual environment.

The project Different Places speaks about the fragility of artistic practice, about its discontinuity and the danger of war. At the same time, it speaks about its omnipresence, about art’s ability to grow in various contexts and forms. About how the artist, even during the war, remains sensitive, resonates with common fear, pain and losses – regardless of place.

Artists: Yevhen Arlov, Mirosław Bałka, Przemek Branas, Davyd Chychkan, Barbara Gryka, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Zhanna Kadyrova, Semen Khramtsov, Yevhen Korshunov, Pavlo Kovach, Katarzyna Kozyra, Dmytro Kupriyan, Oleksandr Len, Aleksandra Liput, Violetta Oliinyk, Denys Pankratov, Sofiya Pomogaibo, Karol Radziszewski, Max Robotov – SVITER art-group, Wilhelm Sasnal, Monika Sosnowska, Ivan Svitlychnyi

Exhibition Curators: Oksana Barshynova, Waldemar Tatarczuk
Public Program Curator: Halyna Hlieba

Project Organizers: National Art Museum of Ukraine, Galeria Labirynt (Lublin, Poland), Adam Mickiewicz Institute (Poland), Polish Institute in Kyiv
Media Partners: Suspilne Kultura, Artslooker

Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and the City of Lublin