On April 8th 2023 opens the exhibition “Futuromarennia: Ukraine and Avant-Garde” in the Kumu Art Museum (Tallinn, Estonia).
The exhibition “Futuromarennia”, where National Art Museum of Ukraine was took part as a partner, was held at Mystetskyi Arsenal in Kyiv in autumn and winter of 2021. The current project has a different focus, it will display innovative artistic visions of the future that were born on the Ukrainian historical soil in the 1910s and 1920s. Radical dreams of the future in painting, scenography, architecture, literature and cinema – artworks by Oleksandra Ekster, David Burliuk, Vasyl Yermylov and many other remarkable authors – come from the collections of museums that continue their work amidst ongoing attacks by the Russian aggressors. The exhibition creates a basis for a critical postcolonial revision of the history of both the Western and Russian avant-garde, showcasing a wide range of peculiarities of the local artistic life and the affinity for international developments in the art of that time.
The display will include more than 100 original artworks – paintings and drawings, designs for books and posters, theatre costumes and scenography – as well as historical photos and video materials. In addition, contemporary reconstructions in embroidery, a 3D model, documentary mappings of historical “places of strength” and two site-specific multimedia installations will help viewers grasp the phenomenon of the avant-garde in Ukraine not only in the historical, but also in the present context. NAMU provided 29 artworks from its collection for the exhibition.
📌 Curators: Olha Melnyk, Ihor Oksametnyi and Viktoriia Velychko
The exhibition will remain open until 10 September 2023. Entry for Ukrainian war refugees is free, based on a document proving their citizenship.