This edited volume traces the development of art practices in Ukraine from the 2004 Orange Revolution, through the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity, to the ongoing Russian war of aggression.
Contributors explore how transformations of identity, the emergence of participatory democracy, relevant changes to cultural institutions, and the realization of the necessity of decolonial release have influenced the focus and themes of contemporary art practices in Ukraine. The chapters analyze such important topics as the postcolonial retrieval of the past, the deconstruction of post-Soviet visualities, representations of violence and atrocities in the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine, and the notion of art as a mechanism of civic resistance and identity-building.
The book will be of interest to scholars of art history, Eastern European studies, cultural studies, decolonial studies, and postcolonial studies.
Edited by:
Svitlana Biedarieva
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 246mm,
Width: 174mm,
Weight: 540g
ISBN: 9781032595184
ISBN 10: 1032595183
Series: Routledge Research in Art and Politics
Pages: 186
Publication Date: 29 November 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
"Preface Introduction Part I: Solidarity 1. Antagonism and Revolutionary Aesthetics: Ukrainian Contemporary Art between the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan 2. ""Shevchenko's Eye"": Identity, Nationalism, Everyday Violence, and a Position of Eyewitness in Vlada Ralko's Artistic Practice 3. From a War of Images to an Image of War: Artistic and Media Representations of Military-Civilian Violence in Ukraine Part II: Identity 4. (de)Construction of “Post-Soviet” Visualities in Contemporary Ukrainian Photography 5. Large-Scale Exhibitions and Identity Building in Ukraine in the Late 2000s - Early 2010s 6. Post-Revolutionary Queer Part III: Decoloniality 7. Becoming Local: Decolonial Practices in Visual Arts in Post-Maidan Ukraine 8. Documentary Practices and Decoloniality in Recent Ukrainian Art 9. Mining: Depictions and Destructions of Donbas 10. How to Regain the Images: The Therapeutic Retrieval of Ukraine’s Colonial Past"
Svitlana Biedarieva is an art historian, artist, and curator. She is the author of the book Ambicoloniality and War: The Ukrainian-Russian Case (2025), the editor of Contemporary Ukrainian and Baltic Art: Political and Social Perspectives, 1991–2021 (2021), and the co-editor of At the Front Line. Ukrainian Art, 2013–2019 (2019). She has published texts in leading academic journals and media outlets, such as October, Daedalus, Financial Times, and The Art Newspaper. She holds a PhD in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.
Reviews for Art in Ukraine Between Identity Construction and Anti-Colonial Resistance
Representative of a generation of contemporary Ukrainian artists, activists, and a cohort of academic scholars untainted by the trauma of imperialist ideology, freed of entrenched Russian narratives, and absent of the slightest nostalgia for a bygone Soviet era, this volume of essays offers fresh perspectives on the texture of a population and its culture breaking out of the clutches of colonization. Chronicling artistic events from the time of the dissolution of the USSR through the Orange (2004) and Euromaidan (2014) Revolutions to today’s persistent criminal assault of Russia on Ukraine, the contributions give rise to a new, inclusive, way of thinking about the history of contemporary art by exposing a society transformed by the extraordinary circumstances of postcoloniality and war. Myroslava M. Mudrak, Emerita Professor, History of Art, The Ohio State University