Individual views, common context. Announcement of new exhibitions

Not all experiences can be described outright. Some remain in things, in gestures, in postponed decisions. The project ‘Art Practices in Wartime’ explores how artists create when this process is deeply embedded in a difficult reality, and answers are not always available. It consists of two solo exhibitions. In March, we will hold an exhibition by Pavlo Kovach, and in April, an exhibition by Stanislav Turina.

Both co-created Open Group, one of the most important Ukrainian artistic collectives of recent years. It has presented its work in important international contexts on numerous occasions. Its current members are Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, and Anton Varga. The collective received the PinchukArtCentre Prizes and participated in the Venice Biennale. In 2024, it prepared the project ‘Repeat After Me 2’ (curated by Marta Czyż), presented at the Polish Pavilion.

Despite their common roots, the individual artistic practices of Turina and Kovach differ significantly in formal, linguistic, and emotional terms. The solo exhibitions present works created outside the collective identity, offering a clear view of these distinct paths.

The exhibition by Pavlo Kovach presents works created before and after the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine. The artist transforms artefacts from the war zone into works of art, juxtaposing the memory of objects with their real context. Through performance and painting, he reflects on the dual identity of the artist-soldier and on how the language of art can be used to describe a world in which creating and living are not separate.

Stanislav Turina is an artist whose works verge on error, risk, and incompletion. The exhibition moves away from ‘finished works’. It consists of works in progress as a response to what remains unfinished or unsettled. His exhibition becomes a record of being here and now – a practice of responding to situations without ready solutions and of continuously moving the boundaries of form and meaning.

The exhibitions offer the opportunity to explore the solo practices of two artists whose works respond to reality, rather than existing independently of it, in moments whose meaning is almost impossible to express in simple language.

• Pavlo Kovach, from 20th March | curator: Paweł Korbus
• Stanislav Turina, from 24th April | curator: Kateryna Iakovlenko

Galeria Labirynt, ul. ks. J. Popiełuszki 5, Lublin
free entry

Pavlo Kovach (b. 1987, Uzhhorod, Ukraine) – graduate of the A. Erdeli Uzhhorod Art College (2005) and the Lviv National Academy of Arts (2011). Gaude Polonia scholar of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland (2012). Award winner of the MUHi competition (2012) and the IN OUT Festival (Gdańsk, 2018). Co-founder of the Efremova26 (Lviv, 2013) and Detenpyla (Lviv, 2013) galleries. Since 2012, he has been a founder and member of Open Group, which received the Main PinchukArtCentre Prize (2015) and a Special Mention at the Allegro Prize in Warsaw (2020). Open Group curated the Ukrainian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019 and represented the Polish Pavilion at the Biennale in 2024, curated by Marta Czyż. Pavlo is also one of the curators of the Lviv Municipal Art Center. As a member of Open Group, he has participated in numerous exhibitions, including ‘Wild Grass: Our Lives’ (8th Yokohama Triennale, Japan, 2024), ‘Forever and a Day’ (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2024), and ‘Our Years, Our Words, Our Losses, Our Search, Our Us’ (Lviv, 2023).
He lives and works in Lviv.
Since 2023, he has served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Stanislav Turina, born in 1988 in Makiivka, Donetsk Oblast, grew up in Mukachevo, Zakarpattia Oblast. He received his art education at the Glass Art Department of the Lviv National Academy of Arts (2005–2011). In his work, he uses various media, including graffiti, ceramics, drawing, installation, and performance. In 2010, together with other artists, he co-founded the Black Circle Festival. He was also a co-founder of two self-organised galleries: Detenpyla and Efremova26. In 2012, together with Yuriy Biley, Anton Varga, Pavlo Kovach (Junior), Oleg Perkovsky, and Yevgen Samborsky, he co-founded the Open Group collective (Відкрита група). In 2018, together with the artist Kateryna Libkind, he founded Atelienormalno, a studio for artists with and without Down syndrome. In 2025, he received the Kazimir Malevich Art Award.

The exhibitions are organized as part of the project “Artistic Practices During Wartime”

The project is funded by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland from the Culture Promotion Fund, a state earmarked fund