07.03.2024

The project was created in 2022-2023 during the Russian-Ukrainian war, which not only shrouded our existence in anxiety and uncertainty but also outlined a broad content field that again and again raises difficult questions about human existence. It is no coincidence that the figurative content of the project went beyond the immediate eventual reflections, appealing to broad layers of historical experience, mixing the personal and the general, the emotional, and the symbolic.
Victor Sydorenko's "Black Earth" is a sequential development of the artist's cross-cutting theme, developed since the mid-1990s, when the main character first appeared in the project "Amnesia": the mass participant in social and historical cataclysms, who is the "material" and the impetus for the events of modern history.
Who is this man here: a hero, a witness, a participant, a victim? As the artist reflects: "I am trying to reflect the overall situation that people find themselves in at all times and everywhere, whether under totalitarianism or democracy, nowadays, like a century ago, - a battle with time. No one can escape its incomprehensible action. Yet everyone will have to be responsible for everything..."
Curated by Halyna Skliarenko

Victor SydorenkoBorn in Taldykorgan (Kazakhstan) in 1953. Graduated from the Kharkiv Art-Industrial Institute (now the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts; Prof. B. Kosarev, 1974-1979). Lives and works in Kyiv city, Ukraine. In 2003, he represented Ukraine at the 50th Venice Biennale with the solo project Millstones of Time. In 2007, he co-curated the Ukrainian pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (with Oleksandr Soloviov), and was commissar at the 54th and 55th Venice Biennale (2011, 2013).

Admission to the opening is free [March 8th, 5pm]The exhibition will last until 7 April
Kyiv National Art Gallery9 Tereshchenkivska Street, Kyiv city, UkraineWed, Fri, Sat, Sun: 11 am - 6 pmTue: 11 am - 7 pmLast tickets are available 40' before closingTickets prices: entrance fee = UAH 200, concessions = UAH 100 Detailed info