A Heart that Beats: Focus on Queer Ukrainian Art

Schwules Museum, Berlin
Upcoming, 5 June 2025 – January 2025

Artists: Yana Bachynska / Jan Bačynsjkyj, Vic Bakin, Yevgenia Belorusets, Anatoly Belov, Andrii Dostliev, Ihor Dychenko, Anton Karyuk, Mykhailo Koptiev, Alina Kleytman, Anton Shebetko, Svitlana Shymko & Galka Yarmanova, Sergei Parajanov
Curators: Maria Vtorushyna, Anton Shebetko

Once Leda Found an Egg—Blue Like a Hyacinth
Maria Kulikovska

Mriya Gallery, Tribeca, New York, 2025

Central to Kulikovska’s work is a feminist critique of power. Her work reflects the traumatic consequences of war, forced migration, and the ongoing struggle for self-expression and bodily autonomy. Born in Kerch, Crimea, Kulikovska was banned from her homeland following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Maria Kulikovska. Bust, from the series Soap Figures, 2019-2024, soap, ashes.
The soap bust was used up during the performance Lustration/Ablution No8 in Mriya Gallery

Exhibition view, Mriya Gallery.
Maria Kulikovska. Virgin with Child, 2011, acrylic and oil paint on сoverlet, ceramics produced at Manufaktur Gmunden, 2022-24

Maria Kulikovska. Urn for Ashes with Lid, ceramics, handpainted. Produced at Manufaktur Gmunden, 2022-23

Daria Biliak. Photo of Maria Kulikovska. From the Pregnant Series. Summer 2021, Kyiv

Maria Kulikovska. Gravy Boat with Flesh, Bowl with Flesh, ceramics.
From the series Stitched Womb, produced at Manufaktur Gmunden, 2024.

The exhibition title draws from a fragment of Sappho’s lost verse: “They say once Leda found an egg—blue like a hyacinth.” The myth of Leda’s assault by Zeus in the form of a swan has long justified violence against the female body. Sappho’s version seems to be an alternative: Leda discovers an egg—a symbol of life’s beginning—left by another woman, who was also escaping from the god. Is the egg violently torn from Leda, or does she find a miracle—new life awaiting her embrace?

Recharge & Revolt: Queer Resistance and Rave Culture in Ukraine
Melkweg, Amsterdam, 2023

Vic Bakin, To Be Who We Want to Be, 2021–ongoing. Photo: Anton Shebetko

Kateryna Lysovenko, Propaganda of My Dream World, 2021, diptych. Photo: Anton Shebetko

Recharge & Revolt exhibition view, Melkweg

Lesha Berezovskiy; Vic Bakin. Archives from raves, 2016–2023.

Jan Bačynsjkyi, Pantheon of Fleeing Spirits, 2022–2023. Photo: Anton Shebetko

Recharge & Revolt exhibition view, Melkweg

The exhibition features works from contemporary Ukrainian multimedia artists and collectives: Jan Bačynsjkyi, Vic Bakin, Lesha Berezovskiy, Illia Chernysh, Kateryna Lysovenko, Oleksandr Halishchuk, Alex King, Zoya Laktionova, Mariia Leonenko, Rebel Queers, Anton Shebetko, Nick J. Swarth, Angelika Ustymenko, and the documentation of a Queer-Cabaret Magic Infant performance (Creative directors: Alina Kleytman, Bogdana Ukraina. Performers: Anatoly Belov, Boji Moroz, Vlad Shast, Panda aka Masha Volkova, AntiGonna. Music: George Babanski).

This exhibition explores rave culture in Ukraine and serves as an expression of queer resistance. The vital practices and connections of the self-organised queer communities in Ukraine are manifested in rave culture. Techno and rave scenes have flourished after the Revolution of Dignity (2013-2014). Ukrainian art is often closely tied to activism and herefore, queerness is recognized by artists not just as a manifestation of our identities—but as a practice of imagining and reshaping the future community.

Performing Kyiv
Cabaret Voltaire, Schauspielhaus Zurich, 2023

Alevtina Kakhidze. An Attempt at Comprehension: Scripted Performance with Immanuel Kant, Lettuce, and Rose. Schauspielhaus Zurich, 2023

Performing Kyiv is a sequence of performances by Alevtina Kakhidze, Uta Bekaia, Maria Kulikovska, and Nika Timashkova.

The emergency for solidarity in response to the ongoing war waged by Russia against Ukraine tests the real meaning of things and ideas. We imagine Kyiv not only as the old European capital (turning 1541 this year), but also as a unique practice of an international community bound by solidarity, strength and freedom. The position of Kyiv is that the reality of war makes ambiguous answers, freezing the conflict, or buying the dirty peace impossible—as the world’s silence about the Russian occupation of Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008 and Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine in 2014, resulted in a bigger tragedy. The most important question is: While aiming for peace, do we all seek justice?

From the Battlefield
SEA Foundation, De Pont Museum, LocHal Bibliotheek
Tilburg, 2022

Katya Buchatska, No Title, video, 2022. Video courtesy of the artist

Artists: Katya Buchatska, Chantal Rens, Nick J. Swarth, Kostyantyn Doroshenko, Alevtina Kakhidze, Eveline van der Peijl, Sasha Kurmaz, Yulia Protsyshyn, Leo Trotsenko, Tamara Turliun, Andrei Liashcuk, Roos Vogels, Chikako Watanabe.

By presenting words, notes, images, documents, and works of artists, curators and thinkers, From the Battlefield focuses on the strength of making small decisions of dignity and freedom when also sacrificing for victory in the circumstances of war. Through collaborations and artistic material by Ukrainian and Dutch participants, we want to capture a specific time and space where violence and disruption prevail. How people live through a war whose will for freedom is powerful, and whom we offer a safe space so that hope can sprout again. From the Battlefield aims to amplify the direct testimony and evidence of those who are committed to protecting freedom and hope. The collaborative project features an exhibition, presented at SEA Foundation. Additionally, there is a public program at at De Pont Museum and LocHal in July 2022.

Maria Vtorushyna

A Heart that Beats: Focus on QueerUkrainian ArtOnce Leda Found an Egg—Blue like a HyacinthRecharge&RevoltPerforming Kyiv From the BattlefieldContact ZonesObject of DesireFreedom StreetKyiv Art Week, 2016-2021To Find and not Let GoBrave! Factory FestivalSistersBurn,Babylon!

Texts CV Contact

A Heart that Beats: Focus on Queer
Ukrainian Art
Once Leda Found an Egg
—Blue like a Hyacinth
Recharge&Revolt
Performing Kyiv
From the Battlefield
Contact Zones
Object of Desire
Freedom Street
Kyiv Art Week, 2016-2021
To Find and not Let Go
Brave! Factory Festival
Sisters
Burn,Babylon!

Texts
CV
Contact