The triennial of Ukrainian contemporary art UKRAINIAN CROSS-SECTION once started as an attempt to expose what Ukrainian art has been, to tell about it without words.
The initial idea was to present Ukrainian contemporary art abroad. This goal motivated us, the project team, to look for the most representative, timely, and authentic artistic expressions. Before introducing those to others, we had to examine ourselves: our identity and commitments, succession and transformations, authenticity and eloquence of Ukrainian art. Thus, the Ukrainian Cross-Section has also been a process of self-exploration throughout the project.
Ukrainian Cross-Section’s history began in 2010 in Lublin: the first triennial was an undertaking to grasp the identity of Ukrainian contemporary art. Soon, in 2013 the self-analys was paramount with the Lyman project in Lublin. And the next triennial reCREATION was a part of the European Capital of Culture 2016 program, the Lviv month in Wroclaw: an exhibition, a retrospective of Ukrainian media art, and performances. It reflected on the state of the art in Ukraine while facing war and changes. In 2019 the Ukrainian Cross-section as a part of Culture Congress in Lviv was a chance for a critical revision of how Ukrainian art could interest global audiences. The 5th Ukrainian Cross-Section Ukraine! Unmuted took place in November 2022 in Kaunas ECoC 2022, Lithuania. The Ukrainian realities were determined mostly by war, by the scale of aggression the world hasn’t seen since WWII. The exhibition was a snapshot of Ukrainian art in this reality. From 2023 the topic was taken in Lublin, Poland. Program Ukraine! Unmuted included the art exhibition, discussions and the presentation of the book of essays. The book is a collection of texts by Ukrainian authors, introducing Ukrainian culture to international readers and undermining the stereotypes about it. As of now, the essays had been published in Ukrainian, English, Lithuanian, Polish, Estonian, and available to readers worldwide from the USA to Japan.
The Cross-Section is a curatorial project. The idea was first entertained in the milieu of Lviv Dzyga Art Association, one of the iconic cultural institutions in the city, and in the country in general. It started with an ambition to grasp and to outline the “Ukrainianness” in contemporary art, to provide a meeting point for those authors considering Ukraine not just a territory, but “their important territory,” the territory for interacting, experiencing, and changing themselves. Now Ukrainian NGO “Virmenska-trydsjat’ pyat”, NGO “The Institute of Actual Art” and the municipal institution “The Cultural Strategy Institute” picked up f the management of Ukrainian Cross-Section.
Every triennial welcomed artists from different cities of Ukraine. But if the initial goal was to represent as broad range of Ukrainian regions as possible, we soon changed our priorities for the transformative process in Ukrainian art regarding media, topics, discourses, interpretations, important names, (un)changeable traditions, and experiments. Since 2010 Ukrainian Cross-Section presented 193 art projects and art works of 138 authors and art groups from cities of Lviv, Kyiv, Kherson, Uzhhorod, Kharkiv, Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Irpin, Sudova Vyshnia, Drohobych, Dnipro, Chernivtsi, Lutsk, Cherkasy, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, Vinnytsia, Sumy, and town Poninka, etc.