LOVE IN KYIV
More terrible is love in Kyiv than
Magnificent Venetian passions. Butterflies
Fly light and maculate into bright tapers –
Dead caterpillars’ brilliant wings aflame!
And spring has lit the chestnuts’ candles!
Cheap lipstick’s tender taste,
The daring innocence of miniskirts,
And these coiffures, that are not cut quite right –
Yet image, memory, and signs still move us…
Tragically obvious, like the latest hit.
You’ll die here by a scoundrel’s knife,
Your blood will spread like rust inside a brand
New Audi in an alley in Tartarka.
You’ll plunge here from a balcony, the sky,
Down headlong to your dirty little Paris
Dressed in a blouse of secretarial white.
You can’t discern the weddings from the deaths…
For love in Kyiv is more terrible than
Ideas of New Communism: specters
Emerge in the intoxicated nights
Out of Bald Mountain, bearing in their hands
Red flags and pots of red geraniums.
You’ll die here by a scoundrel’s knife,
You’ll plunge here from a balcony, the sky, in
A brand-new Audi from an alley in Tartarka
Down headlong to your dirty little Paris
Your blood will spread like rust
upon a blouse of secretarial white….
This past Friday marked the 100th day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Not counting the continuing conflict which began in 2014, this latest invasion starting earlier this year sees not a clear end.
Our previous musings on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights tied artists and their works to themes of human rights, crises and conflict. For the past three months as we continue we featured some profiles and articles under the theme of Ukraine and the war. Welcome to the .131st edition of Prescriptions. Here is our review of the past 100 days.
Thierry Clech
Sunset on Ukraine
“My earliest memory of Ukraine is like a snow globe where a simple shake spreads the tiny sequins into the atmosphere, silver flakes swarming slowly in the confined sky, covering the entire landscape.” Photography and text by Thierry Clech. Forthcoming, Snoeck, September 2022.
Pavlo Makov, Fountain of Exhaustion, Ukraine Pavilion
Venice Biennale / 59th Edition
This year’s edition takes its title The Milk of Dreams from a book by Leonora Carrington in which the artist describes a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination. The Ukraine Pavilion presents Pavlo Makov, Fountain of Exhaustion. The Pavilion of the Russian Federation is withdrawn following the decision by the curator and artists who have resigned from their positions.
Igor Chekachkov
Igor Chekachkov
Started as a photojournalist in 2008, Igor Chakachkov covered a wide range of cultural, mass and sports events. The path through photographic fields, weaving through years of work and searching, led the author to the field of art photography which he still explores these days.
Kristina Podobed
Kristina Podobed
I started doing photography in 2011, mainly documenting myself and my female friends. I gradually became more aware of what I wanted to achieve as an artist and started to work on my personal projects. –Kristina Podobed. Ukraine based photographer and part of our 2020 Selection of 30 Under 30 Women Photographers.
Balnura Nusipova
Calvert 22
Calvert 22, UK’s leading cultural institution dedicated to promoting and supporting the new culture of the New East recently announcing the closure of its activities after over 10 years since its founding.
Bonnie Peterson
Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago
The Institute was founded in 1971 through the initiative of art collectors Dr. Achilles and Vera Chreptowsky, and sculptors Konstantin Milonadis and Mychajlo Urban. They wanted to fill a void in the public’s understanding of nationally and internationally recognized Ukrainian artists engaged with contemporary art.
Louise Nevelson
Louise Nevelson
Louise Nevelson, artist, (Leah Berliawski) was born in 1899 in Perejaslav-Chmelnytskyj, Russia (now Ukraine) in a Jewish Orthodox family that emigrated to the USA in 1905. In the 1960s, she achieved major recognition, and late in life became one of the most celebrated post-war sculptors.
Stephen Shore
Survivors in Ukraine
303 Gallery recently presented an exhibition by Stephen Shore, of photographs from the artist’s series Survivors in Ukraine. This body of work was shot in Ukraine in 2012 and 2013, in and around the homes and villages of Holocaust survivors.
Chien-Chi Chang / Magnum Photos
Ukraine: Updates from Magnum
Magnum Photographers are on the ground in Ukraine documenting the Russian invasion and its impact on life in the country, covering it as it is published alongside stories that report on the conflict.
Michael Bochkarev
UPHA Made in Ukraine
UPHA Made in Ukraine is the first book published by BOOKSHA. The work on the project started in 2017. The book is the result of creative work by the participants of the Ukrainian Photographic Alternative group. For the final version of the book, 57 photographers were selected with 82 art projects.
Natalka Bilotserkivets, still from reading “Rose” / Poetry International
Natalka Bilotserkivets
Natalka Bilotserkivets is a Ukrainian poet and translator. In 1976 she graduated from the Kyiv University Department of philology. Worked in Maksym Rylsri Museum, as Molodist Publishing House poetry department editor, and over 20 years in the Ukrainian Culture magazine. Natalka is the author of 7 poetic collections and a book of literary critical essays.
…You can’t discern the weddings from the deaths…
For love in Kyiv is more terrible than
Ideas of New Communism: specters
Emerge in the intoxicated nights
Out of Bald Mountain, bearing in their hands
Red flags and pots of red geraniums.
You’ll die here by a scoundrel’s knife,
You’ll plunge here from a balcony, the sky, in
A brand-new Audi from an alley in Tartarka
Down headlong to your dirty little Paris
Your blood will spread like rust
upon a blouse of secretarial white.
–Natalka Bilotserkivets
Translated by Andrew Sorokowsky
