9 February – 21 April 2024
How do the terms “beauty’” and “culture” function relative to one another in various disciplines, including craft and design? Various art historical models are often used to frame the cultural expressions of a singular community.
Traditional Ukrainian arts and crafts, or folk art, include decorative painting, embroidery, pottery, textile weaving, woodworking, and egg decorating, with styles and designs particular to different regions of Ukraine. A majority of these crafts were traditions that originated and flourished in rural areas and villages. Various symbols and meanings from both the pre-Christian and Christian eras intertwined with each other. Kilims, textiles, and ceramics were incorporated into every home not only as decorative elements, but as family traditions and history. All the objects in the home were interconnected aesthetically; nothing existed on its own.
A key component of Ukrainian folk art is the pysanka (plural: pysanky), an embellished egg whose crafting dates back to pre-Christian culture. The word comes from the Ukrainian verb pysaty, to write.
At first glance, pysanky appear to be well-designed, beautiful self-reflections of the maker. But their rhetoric has an underhanded virtuosity, capable of producing unexpected effects. As the modernist architect Le Corbusier once remarked, the purpose of a home and its design is to move us. Pysanka artisans, then, consistently realize architecture’s highest aim: they create works whose extraordinary power lies not only in how deeply they make us feel, but also in how they let us see the complexity of our feelings, in meaningful environments that help us live or dwell.
Currently, we live in a world with a focus on the individual and on all the goings-on of individual issues. This exhibition will raise questions such as, What is beauty? How does the pinnacle of Ukrainian folk culture, the pysanka, position itself within design? In which spaces did these objects originate? Can these beautiful eggs raise visitors’ spirits? This begins to unravel the subtle elements of beauty, with various definitions of the word.
