Voloshyn Gallery presents the works of Ukrainian artists Nikita Kadan and Lesіa Khomenko at The Armory Show. The project included Nikita Kadan's earlier works, which comprehend historical events and processes and are an attempt to trace the relationship between our past, its destruction, and the present. Also the works from Lesia Khomenko's new series, which were created during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and became its documentation.

Nikita Kadan presents works from the series "We will see the 20th century", "Observations on Archives" and "Tiger's Leap". In the "Observations on Archives" series, the author offers to consider the topic of destruction and oblivion and loss of heritage. After all, the archive turns out to be an excessive and impermissible luxury in the conditions of "austerity" and social catastrophe - which returns human experience to a state of homogeneity. The internal connections and structure of the narrative are destroyed and crumbled, turning into a mass of loose indivisible material and, thus, giving simple integrity. The title "Tiger's Leap" is a reference to Walter Benjamin's philosophical concept of "tiger's leap" into the past to find impetus for contemporary political struggles. "Tiger's Leap" is a reconstruction of homemade spears made from ordinary tools, which were used by the workers of the Horliv Machine-Building Plant during the armed uprising in 1905. The workers' protests were directed against the Belgian factory manager. On the one hand, this story of the uprising is related to the role of Europeans in the first modernization of Donbas. On the other hand, it is a history of lawlessness, labor struggle and revolution within the Russian Empire.

For the series "We will see the 20th century", Nikita Kadan superimposes photographs from a concert of a Ukrainian punk band (taken by Andriy Boyko) on loose copies of fragments of Picasso's "Guernica" and sketches related to it (in particular, "Head of a Crying Woman", 1937). Thus, the most famous anti-fascist work of art turns out to be a museum artifact of the age of modernity, the age that has passed.

Lesia Khomenko presents works from a new series of works depicting soldiers and volunteers. The author started this series on February 24, 2022, after escaping Kyiv. Lesia Khomenko paints portraits of her husband's fellow soldiers from the photos he takes in the army, where he is currently stationed. For her, this is a way to participate in the struggle together with him, and also an opportunity to maintain a creative dialogue with him, as it was before he got into a new military reality. In this series, Khomenko reflects on the role and status of the image, which in a military context has become a deadly weapon.

September 8 - 11, 2022

Javits Center, NY, USA, Booth P34