THE COLLEC-
TIVE BODY
DISMEM-
BERED
Histories of Art,
Identities and the
War in Ukraine
Free with registration and webinar
Symposium
Tuesday 31 May 2022
9:00–18:00 CET
SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
The auditorium at SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
Anti Gonna, Untitled, 2017
The Collective Body – past, present and future
Soviet Socialist Realist art imagined a collective body that represented the proletarian collective of socialism within the “fraternal” republics of the USSR. From the Comintern (Communist International) in the 1930s to the socialist internationalism of the Cold War, the Soviet Union also exported its image of the collective body across the world, as it collaborated culturally with socialist or socialist-leaning nations, including the de-colonizing nations of the global South.
The current imperialist war of Russia against Ukraine is waged in the now cynical language of “brotherly nations” but signals the definitive ruin of any vestiges of Soviet fraternalism or internationalism, and the dismemberment of the collective body.
The symposium is organized by artist Yvette Brackman (SMK) and art historian Christina Kiær (University of Copenhagen and Northwestern University).
Talks, discussions and screenings
The symposium brings Ukrainian artists Maria Kulikovska, Dana Kavelina, Anti Gonna, and Nikita Kadan, along with scholar of contemporary Ukrainian art Svitlana Biedarieva and curator of Ukrainian artistic film Olexii Kuchanskiy, together with historical scholars of Ukrainian and Soviet modernism and Socialist Realism Katia Denysova, Maria Mileeva, Michal Murawski, and Ievgeniia Gubkina.
It also includes a roundtable of Danish scholars considering Danish-Soviet connections, including Tom Hermansen, Tania Ørum, Birgitte Beck Pristed, with artist Kristoffer Ørum and moderated by Samuel Rachlin.
Bjerke Petersen, mural at Højdevangens Skole, Copenhagen, 1932-1939
With artists and scholars:
Anti Gonna, Svitlana Biedarieva, Birgitte Beck Pristed, Katia Denysova, Ievgeniia Gubkina, Tom Hermansen, Nikita Kadan, Dana Kavelina, Olexii Kuchanskiy, Maria Kulikovska / Garage 33, Maria Mileeva, Michal Murawski, Samuel Rachlin, Kristoffer Ørum and Tania Ørum
Anti Gonna. Untitled, 2017
Zhanna Kadyrova. Palianytsia, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist
Tymko Boichuk. By the Apple Tree (1919-1920), 54 x 40 cm. The National Art Museum of Ukraine
Boichuk's School. Fragment of a Mural at the Press House in Odesa (1930). Photo Negative from the collection of The National Art Museum of Ukraine
Freedom Square, Kharkiv. The M. F. Sumtsov Kharkiv Historical Museum
Freedom Square, Kharkiv. The M. F. Sumtsov Kharkiv Historical Museum
Bjerke Petersen. Murals for Højdevangens Skole, Copenhagen, 1932-1939
Mogens Lorentzen. Murals for Roskilde Højskole, Denmark, 1930-31 (demolished)
Sigurd Swane. Mural for Hjortespring Skole, 1929-1931
Nikita Kadan. Gazelka, 2015. Metal (from an abandoned GAZ-3302 delivery truck affectionately known as the “Gazelka,” pierced by shrapnel by pro-Russian military forces in Donetsk in May 2014).
Nikita Kadan. Victory (White Shelf), 2017. Melted cups found in the ruins of a house destroyed by artillery strikes in the city of Lysychansk, Donbass
Dana Kavelina. Still from Letter to a Turtledove, 2020
Dana Kavelina. Still from Letter to a Turtledove, 2020
Dana Kavelina. Still from Letter to a Turtledove, 2020
Dana Kavelina. Still from Letter to a Turtledove, 2020
Dana Kavelina. Still from Letter to a Turtledove, 2020
Viktor Koretsky. Poster: “Greetings to the Fighters against Fascism,” 1937
Olexii Kuchanskyi. fantastic little splash, concrete and unclear (2019)
Oleksiy Radynskyi. Still from Infinity According to Florian (2022)
Maria Kulikovska. Still from Forgotten, 2019
Alina Szapocznikow. Monument to Polish-Soviet Friendship (1955)
Kristoffer Ørum. Algorithmic Portrait of Putin. From the ongoing project Putin’s Nose
Terminally ill children from hospice and their parents making a Z formation. Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani (March 6, 2022).
Photo of Milča Majerová’s choreography of the letter Z in Karl Teige and Vitĕzslav Nezval’s primer Abeceda, Prague, 1926: 55
Stage sketch to the formation of the Cyrillic letters МЮД (MIuD was the acronym of the International Youth Day). ZhTG for pioneers, 6-7 (1928): 7
Photo of an acrobatic performance of the Cyrillic letters Ж.Т.Г. (ZhTG was the acronym of the Living Dramatized Newspaper). ZhTG for children 39, (1930)
Anna Shevchenko. Putin in Every Paving Stone, 2018. Tile, stencil, acrylic. Photo: Olga Alexeyenko
Alina Szapocznikow. Monument to Polish-Soviet Friendship (1955), dismembered and discarded 1992. Warsaw Museum of Modern Art
Maria Kulikovska. Still from Forgotten, 2019
Hamed Owais. On the Aswan Dam, 1965. Oil on canvas, 99 x 85 cm. Moscow: State Museum of Oriental Art. Photo: State Museum of Oriental Art