It’s been nearly a quarter century since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but the physical reminders of Central and Eastern Europe’s communist past are still provoking controversy.
Ukraine
Posted inNews
Kiev’s Attractive New Police Force Told to Pose for Selfies with Civilians
When 2,000 new police officers were sworn into duty in Kiev last Saturday, Ukrainians couldn’t help noticing how attractive the recruits — a quarter of them women — looked.
Posted inIn Brief
Russian Militants Blow Up Contemporary Art Installation in Ukraine
The cosmetic symbol of Donetsk’s regeneration was blown up this month by Russian separatists who have, since last spring, been waging a war that’s once again reduced parts of the city to rubble.
Posted inNews
A Public Art Project Casts a Shadow Over Moscow, Crimea, and Ukraine
A towering statue of Vladimir the Great is causing a great deal of anger in Moscow and beyond.
Posted inArt
When a Political Movement Becomes a Monument
Around the world, the aesthetic of revolt flows unabridged, immediate, and jittery, the revolution in any room. Which makes Maidan, Sergei Loznitsa’s unblinking and stirring documentary of last year’s Ukrainian protests that ended in the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych seem like even more of a formal, rigorous outlier.
Posted inArt
After Alleged Attack, Making Sense of a Chelsea Exhibition’s Murky Backing
On October 3rd, an assailant and two accomplices allegedly entered the cavernous gallery at 540 West 21st Street in Manhattan’s Chelsea district. What happened next, according to reports published here and in the New York Times, was an assault of the curator, Benjamin Hiller, with pepper spray, and the apparent partial defacing of the exhibition on view.
Posted inIn Brief
Curator Assaulted by “Paramilitary Thugs” in Kiev
A politically engaged Ukrainian curator was attacked and beaten in an incident in Kiev late last month, The Art Newspaper reported.
Posted inIn Brief
Pro-Russian Separatists Kidnap Artist in Ukraine
Pro-Russian rebels have abducted an artist in eastern Ukraine, the International Business Times reported.
Posted inIn Brief
Ukrainian Separatists Lift Soviet Tank, Howitzers from Local Museum
In case you needed a reminder that history is just fossilized life, look no further than Ukraine, where the past has been quite literally and rudely revived.
Posted inArt
A Lesbian Kiss Awakens Sleeping Beauty
On September 5, the first Sleeping Beauty in Polataiko’s Ukrainian exhibition awoke to a kiss from another woman.
Posted inArt
Seeing Through the Crowds Part III at the 2011 Venice Biennale: The Unofficial Exhibitions
During the Biennale, innumerable numbers of events take place outside of the official Biennale grounds of the Giardini and Arsenale, especially from countries that couldn’t afford pavilions inside the Arsenale. They either rented out abandoned spaces near it, like the Iraqi pavilion did, or, if they couldn’t afford that, asked friends who own a little art gallery in between gift shops if they could use their space. Here are some oddities of note.
Posted inArt
Capitalism, Reality and Photography
I awoke from a daze when I walked into Boris Mikhailov’s Case History at MoMA. All of the sudden the white walls and sleek designs I’d come to expect from Friday-night strolls were replaced by muted flesh tones and a feeling of being watched. It was almost as if I’d switched roles with the work. Not able to shake the feeling, I began to internally justify why I was so impacted by a few images and listing all the predictable ways they seemed exploitative, but that didn’t help. I’d been affected in a way I couldn’t pinpoint.