February 21 – April 6, 2025
Curator: Olena Kashuba-Volvach
On February 21, 2025, the National Art Museum of Ukraine (NAMU) will open a large-scale exhibition titled In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900s–1930s. This exhibition is part of a major international project that, between 2022 and 2024, brought the vivid and dramatic story of Ukrainian modernism to museums in Madrid, Cologne, Brussels, Vienna, and London. With this project, the National Art Museum of Ukraine continues the narrative of modernism it began in 2019 with the re-exposition Modernism in Ukraine, which, for the first time, presented the art of this period as a story of stylistic transformation in Ukraine. This initiative was the first comprehensive presentation of Ukrainian modernism to the international community and received wide acclaim from art critics in publications such as The Times, The Guardian, and The Art Newspaper.
The project was not only a cultural event but also an act of rescue. During the full-scale war, unique works of Ukrainian modernism were evacuated from Kyiv under shelling to preserve this heritage and share with the world the truth about Ukrainian art—art that had long remained in the shadows of imperial and Soviet narratives.
The exhibition tells the story of modernist artists who sought to renew and Europeanize Ukrainian art. They experimented with Cubo-Futurism, Constructivism, and Neo-Primitivism, while also developing their own artistic concepts. Despite the turbulent historical circumstances—from World War I and the brief independence of the Ukrainian People’s Republic to the repressions of the 1930s—this era marked a period of flourishing in Ukrainian art. Beyond its artistic dimension, the exhibition serves as a critical reflection on the history of Ukrainian modernism, situating its development within the context of the European avant-garde. It highlights two key phases: the period of free experimentation from the 1900s to the early 1920s, and the era of repression in the 1930s, when the Soviet regime destroyed independent artistic movements. The exhibition also raises the issue of national identity, as for many years Ukrainian artists were unjustly classified as part of the “Russian avant-garde.”
In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900s–1930s offers the most comprehensive overview to date of Ukrainian modernism. It features more than 57 paintings and graphic works by 27 artists from NAMU’s collection, including Oleksandra Ekster, Oleksandr Bohomazov, Anatol Petrytskyi, Viktor Palmov, the Boichuk brothers, Oleksandr Arkhypenko, Vasyl Yermilov, and others.
The exhibition program will include guided tours by the curator and lectures focusing on key moments in the history of Ukrainian modernism and the analysis of selected artworks.
This landmark project is not only a restoration of historical justice, but also a declaration of the resilience of Ukrainian culture. Just as it did a century ago, in a time of upheaval, Ukrainian art is once again asserting its rightful place in the global cultural landscape.