The book Permanent Revolution: Art in Ukraine. 20th to the early 21st Century by leading Ukrainian curator and author Alisa Lozhkina will be released in English in November 2020. The volume surveys the history of Ukrainian art, highlighting the key points, actors, and phenomena across 550 pages and 480 illustrations.
Nathan Jeffers, an emerging UK writer and translator, is adapting the text and Roman Ivashkiv, Language Program Coordinator, Senior Lecturer of Slavic Languages and Literature at Illinois University (USA), is serving as editor.
The book will be released with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation and ArtHuss Publishing, well known in Ukraine for publishing on art and culture.
Digital versions of the book in English, Ukrainian, and French will be available for free in November 2020. Please click the link to register to receive the documents via e-mail.
The limited print edition will be delivered to leading art and cultural institutions and libraries.
Alisa Lozhkina, writer and independent curator of numerous exhibitions in Ukraine, Austria, USA, Poland, Hungary: “Recently I have been working a lot to promote contemporary Ukrainian art internationally. Every time I talk to international art experts, I discover their limited familiarity with Ukraine’s fine art tradition and modernity, even though art in Ukraine today objectively makes up one of the strongest schools in Europe. I decided to fill this gap with my book, which is intended for a wide audience. I hope it becomes a bridge between Ukraine and the international community, bringing them closer together. Today, when we all are restricted in our movements around the world, it is exceptionally important to increase cross-cultural communication and use technology to introduce Ukrainian art to the rest of the world. Therefore, the book will be available for free, allowing it to travel freely through continents and cultures.”
The Ukrainian edition of Permanent Revolution: Art in Ukraine. 20th to the early 21st Century was published by ArtHuss in late 2019 and presented in Kyiv, Odesa, and Lviv. Leading Ukrainian art historians and curators Kostiantyn Akinsha, specialist in international modernism, curator, Oksana Barshynova (National Art Museum of Ukraine), Oleksandr Soloviov (Mystetskyi Arsenal National Art and Museum Complex) served as the scholarly editors of Lozhkina’s monograph.
In French Une Révolution Permanente. L’ART UKRAINIEN CONTEMPORAIN ET SES RACINES was published by Nouvelles Editions Place and presented at Centre Pompidou. Both editions were published with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
Yulia Fediv, acting director of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation: For the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, the sustainability of the projects we support is crucial. We are pleased when we see them growing and developing and we feel how important our efforts are. The release of this book last year was a vivid cultural event. Substantial work and an indigenous approach are hallmarks of the volume. I am sure it will become an efficient tool to promote Ukrainian art internationally, especially with its solid English translation.
Kostiantyn Kozhemiaka, founder of ArtHuss: “The mission of ArtHuss Publishing is to promote Ukrainian art locally and widely abroad as an element of cultural diplomacy, which supports a positive image of a country with many cultural traditions”.
Alisa Lozhkina
Alisa Lozhkina is a Ukrainian curator and art critic. In 2013–2016 Lozhkina served as Deputy Director of Mystetskyi Arsenal, the largest museum and exhibition complex in Ukraine.
Lozhkina has curated numerous art projects in Ukraine and abroad. Since 2014 she has been focusing on presenting contemporary Ukrainian art internationally. Her most recent project, a large-scale exhibition of Ukrainian contemporary art Between Fire and Fire. Ukrainian Art Now, was held at Semperdepot (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria). Together with renowned international art historian Kostiantyn Akinsha, Lozhkina curated the exhibition I Am a Drop in the Ocean: Art of the Ukrainian Revolution in the Künstlerhaus (Vienna, Austria) and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow MOCAK (Krakow, Poland). Among her other recent international exhibitions are Long Path to Freedom (Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, 2015) and ART WORK (Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv; Dworcowa Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland).
In 2018 Alisa Lozhkina was the chief curator of the first large-scale European museum presentation of three generations of Ukrainian artists at the Ludwig Museum (Budapest, Hungary). The show, titled Permanent Revolution: Ukrainian Art Now, was nominated for a Global Fine Art Award (New York, USA) as one of the best museum exhibitions of post-war and contemporary art in the world.
A series of articles Lozhkina authored were underlying for Ukrainian art historical discourse of late 2000s–early 2010s. In 2009-2010, together with Oleksandr Soloviov, she wrote a history of contemporary Ukrainian art of the 1980–2000s, Point Zero: The Newest History of Ukrainian Contemporary Art. In 2010–2016 Lozhkina was the editor-in-chief of the major Ukrainian art magazine ART UKRAINE. She also contributed to various Ukrainian and international magazines and catalogs. In 2018 Lozhkina edited a book based on her curatorial projects called ART WORK. A series of essays by leading Ukrainian artists, art critics, and curators was published by the Mystetskyi Arsenal publishing house.
The Ukrainian Cultural Foundation is a state institution created in 2017 as a new competition-based model for funding and promoting f initiatives in the fields of culture and the creative industries. The Foundation’s activities, according to current legislation, are integral part of the policy and priorities determined by the Ministries of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine.
ArtHuss publishing company was established in Kyiv, Ukraine in 2016. The areas, which the publisher focuses on, embrace popular cultural studies and professional editions for creative industries (graphic design, animation, illustration, architecture, product design, fashion, etc). ArtHuss cooperates with internationally renowned publishing houses like Penguin Books, Phaidon Press, the MIT Press and others. ArtHuss widely collaborates with cultural institutions and universities and takes part in cultural diplomacy events, initiates a range of cultural projects aiming promotion and research of visual arts in Ukraine.