PinchukArtCentre at ArtBasel

After the full scale invasion of Ukraine started, PinchukArtCentre took action internationally. Over the course of the last four months we’ve been establishing international dialogue in Europe through a number of large-scale art projects at the world’s leading art and socio-cultural events. Our goal has been to amplify the cultural heritage of Ukraine, which has been rooting deep through the historic challenges, and establishing its vibrant and creative identity despite the multiple instances of foreign oppression.

Today, as ArtBasel starts, we are happy to announce our presence at the art fair with three projects.

“Temptation of Death”

Eleven diptychs from Boris Mikhailov’s latest photographic series “Temptation of Death” will be displayed prominently on billboards across the facades and entrances of cultural institutions in Basel as well as the City Hall.

“Temptation of Death” (2017–2019) consists of more than 150 pairings of images, in which the artist combines his distinct autobiographical voice with a bleak social premonition. Ploughing through his archive of performative photography and traces of remnants of the Soviet Union, he creates a series of visual poems, staring his own life – and the death of the Soviet Union – in the eye. With his extensive photographic series Mikhailov, a flaneur in the sense of Walter Benjamin, a poet and ragpicker, has captured memories of a time gone by. This is all the more relevant today when Putin’s war against Ukraine is also destroying the Soviet legacy as a part of the physical reality and psychological identity of Ukraine.

“The battleship and the catamaran” Film Program

Screened daily at Theater Basel, the film program features work by Oleksandr Roitburd, a participant in the Ukrainian New Wave movement, as well as films by a younger generation of artists creating a fragmented portrait of Ukraine today.

Historical video piece “Psychedelic Invasion of the Battleship Potyomkin into Sergey Eisenstein’s Tautological Hallucinations” (1998) by Oleksandr Roitburd, bringing together the past and present, the classic and the contemporary, which will be on view at Theater Basel. But what is an endpoint is also a new beginning, embodied by four video pieces by young Ukrainian artists Dana Kavelina, Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei; Daniil Revkovskiy and Andriy Rachinskiy; and the collective Open Group. In fragments, the artists create a collective portrait of today’s Ukraine, studying it through their own body, trauma and imagination. Film program curated by Ksenia Malykh, Head of Research Platform PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv

Liste Exhibition

At the invitation of independent curator @Martha Kirszenbaum, junior curators of the PinchukArtCentre Oleksandra Pohrebnyak and Daria Shevtsova prepared the "The Sky Is Getting Closer" video program for the?Liste Art Fair Basel, an exhibition within the parallel programs of Art Basel. “We created this program during the period of the full-scale russian invasion. In light of russia's long war against Ukraine, we paid particular attention to the practices of Ukrainian artists who have been influenced by the events of the last eight years. In a dialogue with co-director Martha Kirszenbaum, we selected 19 video works. In addition to art videos, the program also includes films, music videos, and a display of the designer collection. The video program highlights Ukraine's resilience, courage, and irony, addressing political and social issues amid the brutality of russian aggression. Some videos reflect their communities, lost homes, and a changing historical landscape. Many works show the viability of traditional culture along with modern technological changes. Global challenges, such as war, resettlement, and climate change, are an opportunity for artists to think about the future and the possibility of coexistence in a everyday environment”, the junior curators said.

Film program “The battleship and the catamaran” will be screened in a continuous loop in the Foyer of Theater Basel daily from 11am to 6pm from Tuesday, 14 June until Sunday, 19 June 2022. Access is free. No tickets required.

Exhibition Liste Art Fair Basel will be open on June 13—19 Venue: Maulbeerstrasse/corner Riehenring 113 4058 Basel

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