Charim, Vienna
March 11 – 25, 2022

It is extremely rare for specific events of global significance to affect an art exhibition in a substantial way. Nevertheless, the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine has given an existential drama to the long-planned exhibition of Ukrainian, German, Spanish and Austrian artists in our gallery. It was planned as the second part of a project that was realized at the Lviv Art Center on August 24, 2021, on the date of the 30th anniversary of the Ukrainian Independence Day. The original title of the Vienna exhibition “The Day after the Independence Day” now takes on a new meaning and possibly a new date for a liberated, independent Ukraine will also have to be found.

We open nevertheless or just because of this, even if the hostilities prevent that the artists can enter the country and their artworks can be transported. The newly conceived group exhibition will now be a collective work documenting the freedom of travel and exchange that were still taken for granted in the course of the realization of the original project in Lviv. This retrospective and concrete daily news of artists who stayed in Ukraine, concretize the emergence of the exhibition in the past and the development of the new “independence” - exhibition in Vienna.

Artistic production needs freedom. The current restriction of democratic rights of freedom, their gagging and cynical denigration in the Russian sphere of influence make it clear that all other forms of freedom and dignity are thereby also permanently damaged. The outcomes of this policy of violence and the current situation in Ukraine are focal points of this exhibition.

Group exhibition
Artists: Ivan Bazak, Naomi Dutzi, Roman Khimei, Yarema Malashchuk, Friedrich Stockmeier, Vova Vorotniov, Tereza Yakovyna, Ostap Yashchuk.