Between Two Fires: Monumental Art in Ukraine

Fascinating lecture at the National Maritime Museum on the monumental art legacy of Ukraine of the 1960s – 1980s and the effect of the war on it.

Organised by the British Council and Ukrainian Institute as part of the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival this talk brought together photographer Yevgen Nikiforov and art historian Lizaveta German. Unfortunately the speakers visas to travel had not come through in time so they had to deliver the talk to the audience in the lecture hall by Zoom.

German started the event by talking us though the history of monumental art in the Ukraine since the 1960s with a focus on the large mosaics. She outlined how the idea for mosaics came from the Byzantine tradition in the area then the idea of decorating some of the simplified post Second World War buildings with them.

Photographer Nikiforov then outlined his project to record and photograph the over 5000 mosaics in the country. This has become even more important since the start of the war as a significant number of these works have been destroyed in the bombing. As a librarian I was very impressed at his research techniques from combing though archives to using Google Street Maps to identify public buildings in town then looking to see if they had mosaics.

Both speakers discussed some conundrums with these works which were made as soviet propaganda but are now seen by the younger generation as significant art works. Many had already been damaged before the war as Soviet emblems such as portraits of Lenin were removed from them.

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