By LEON NEAL / AFP
One year after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Ukraine is also trying to protect its heritage from the Russian army. Several international museums are taking part in this resistance movement by reattributing Ukrainian nationality to artists who were previously presented as Russian.
One year after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Ukraine is also trying to protect its heritage from the Russian army. Several international museums are taking part in this resistance movement by reattributing Ukrainian nationality to artists who were previously presented as Russian.
Kazimir Malevitch is one of them. This major painter of the first abstraction was born on February 11, 1879 in Kiev, when this part of Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire. He left the city at the age of 22 to complete his artistic education in Moscow. It is in Moscow that he became one of the major protagonists of the Russian avant-garde, alongside Vassily Kandinsky, Vladimir Tatlin and El Lissitzky.
Ukraine's Soviet past and the decisive importance that Russia played in Malevich's career go some way to explaining why he is often labeled as a Russian, not Ukrainian, artist. But it's a historically charged reference that the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has decided to rectify. A spokesperson for the institution told The Art Newspaper that it will now present Malevich as having been "born in Ukraine to parents of Polish origin." This statement already appears on the Stedelijk Museum's explanatory panels and on its official website. It will also appear in the museum's future communication materials.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has taken a similar step regarding Ivan Aivazovsky, Arkhyp Kuindzhi and Ilya Repin. These 19th century artists are now presented as of Ukrainian, not Russian, origin. "The Met continually researches and examines objects in its collection in order to determine the most appropriate and accurate way to catalogue and present them," a Met spokesperson told ARTnews. "The cataloguing of these works has been updated following research conducted in collaboration with scholars in the field."
Upgrading the status of Ukrainian cultural heritage
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian armed forces has prompted some museums to reconsider how works of art in their collections dealing with Russian and Ukrainian heritage are presented. The National Gallery in London, for example, renamed a drawing by Edgar Monet formerly known as "Russian Dancers" in March 2022 to highlight Ukrainian cultural heritage and better describe. It is now titled "Ukrainian Dancers" based on details of the dancers' attire. The Met has also changed the title of another Degas drawing with the same name from the same body of work. It is now called "Dancer in Ukrainian Dress."
This process of re-evaluation is being boosted by several social media users on social networks, including Ukrainian art historian Oksana Semenik. She launched the Twitter account "Ukrainian Art History" in June 2022, as part of a movement for "decolonizing American and European museums." She shares works of art created by Ukrainian artists such as Ivan Honchar, Mykhailo Bryansky, Volodymyr Mykyta and Boris Kosarev.
An initiative undertaken at a time when Ukraine's cultural heritage is paying a heavy price for the war. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) is concerned about the threats of looting against museums and other heritage sites in the country since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. This is why it published, in November, an "emergency red list of cultural objects at risk" for Ukraine, listing about 50 types of objects that are particularly vulnerable. A tool that ICOM hopes will be relevant and effective for the identification of cultural objects looted and stolen in Ukraine.
