ЖИВЕ ПОЛОТНО / A Living Canvas: The Ukrainian Museum at 50 – MEMBERS’ PREVIEW

A century ago, fine art and folk art were considered separate entities. Rigid academic conventions designated their practitioners as, on the one hand, “artists” and, on the other, “applied artists” or artisans or craftspeople. The unique character of Ukrainian modern art lies precisely in the fact that these two worlds were always closely allied in the nation’s cultural consciousness. Despite the hierarchies imposed by European academics, most Ukrainians recognized no real division between these two powerful forms of human expression. The exhibition A Living Canvas: The Ukrainian Museum at 50 traces the continuities inherent in a native Ukrainian aesthetic. It focuses on formal elements that illustrate the deep affinities between the fine and folk art creations of Ukrainian masters — works that, collectively, express a worldview of hope and expectation, an ever-present quality of the Ukrainian sensibility.

A Living Canvas also pays tribute to the curatorial team that shaped it and to the institutional memory its members embody: Dr. Myroslava M. Mudrak, Professor Emerita of Art History at The Ohio State University, who has defined the critical frameworks through which Ukrainian modernism is understood; Lubow Wolynetz, the Museum’s Folk Art Curator, whose deep knowledge of the collection’s textile and decorative holdings is unparalleled; founding Director Maria Shust, under whose leadership the Museum’s foundational identity was formed; Dr. Olha Yarema-Wynar, Olha Yarema-Wynar, Textile Conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for over 20 years; and Dr. Maria Rewakowicz, current Head of Collections, whose stewardship has continued the Museum’s mission to preserve and expand the permanent collection. These five are not only the architects of the exhibition; they are part of the story it brings to life. 

The exhibition presents The Ukrainian Museum’s collection as it has never been experienced before. In lieu of a conventional thematic or chronological account of Ukraine’s cultural heritage, A Living Canvas is organized around the formal threads that weave the fine arts with the decorative art of textiles, costume, and folk art across centuries and geographies. This organization reflects something essential about Ukrainian art: that the boundary between the village workshop and the artist’s studio was always fluid and mutually beneficial. The connections between the woven kilim and the painted canvas, the embroidered rushnyk (ritual cloth) and the modernist composition are materially tangible by sharing the same visual language. A Living Canvas makes visible their common qualities.

Before A Living Canvas opens to the public on May 17, members are invited for the exhibition preview on May 16, 6-8 pm. Join us for an evening among the works — and among the community that has sustained this Museum for fifty years. Members can RSVP through the provided link.