Akinsha, Konstantin: In the Eye of the Storm

A major study of Ukrainian art from 1900 to the mid-1930s - with loans from major museums in Ukraine, elsewhere in Europe, the United States (including MoMA) and Israel. In the Eye of the Storm presents the groundbreaking art produced in what is now Ukraine in the early 20th century - at a time when the country did not exist as the independent state it had previously been and is again today. The book will accompany an exhibition that will trace the artistic developments between 1900 and the mid-1930s, focusing on three key regional centres - Kharkiv, Kyiv and Odesa - against a complicated socio-political backdrop of collapsing empires, World War I, the Revolution with the ensuing civil war, and the creation of Soviet Ukraine. The publication will feature avant-garde art created in Ukraine from a Ukrainian perspective while acknowledging the complex geopolitical structures and identities within which it functioned: Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish and Polish. To highlight the dynamism and diversity of the artistic scene in these three cities during the period, the book will feature works in various media - from traditional oil paintings and drawings to collages, graphic and theatre s, and cinema. The book is highly topical in light of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which exploits cultural, historical and linguistic myths and stereotypes as the pretext for its violence.