The fifth edition of the Kyiv Biennial will take place across Europe at locations in Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Uzhhorod, Berlin, Warsaw, Lublin, Antwerp and Vienna as the main exhibition venue. In view of the brutal Russian attack on Ukraine, a comprehensive biennial project in Kyiv long seemed deeply uncertain, if not impossible. But, with a cascade of openings—starting in Kyiv in October 2023, finishing in Berlin in 2024—the fifth Kyiv Biennial will be taking place. This Biennial edition is conceived as a European event, with dispersed exhibitions and public programs in a number of Ukrainian and EU cities, and realized in partnership with leading European institutions in the field of contemporary art.
The project aims to reintegrate the Ukrainian artistic community, divided by war and scattered across Europe, and to enable its actors to work together with international colleagues and partners on the cultural, social and environmental challenges Ukraine is currently facing and to place them in a global context. Artistic images, investigative documentations and institutional practices will be explored with regard to possible exit strategies from the current impasse of war, authoritarianism and colonialism, where the scenarios for a new Ukraine beyond war could even be imagined. The decentralized European Kyiv Biennial will be an important and at the same time “introductory gesture” that create bridges and pillars for a long-time relationship with Ukraine on a personal as well as institutional level, which will remain beyond the projects carried out in Autumn 2023.
Kyiv Biennial is an international forum for art, knowledge, and politics that integrates exhibitions and discussion platforms established in 2015. It adopts an interdisciplinary perspective at the intersection of the humanities, socially engaged art, and political activism in order to reflect on the crucial issues of the contemporary world. The Biennial is organized by the Visual Culture Research Center.
A Europe-wide solidarity commitment by art institutions—please follow the current status on our website.
Thanks to all artists participating in different cities and venues:
AKT, Kateryna Aliinyk, Pawel Althamer, Vitalii Atanasov, Babi Badalov, Abdul Sharif Oluwafemi Baruwa, Luka Basov, Ivan Bazak, Mykola Bazarkin, Boji, Katya Buchatska, Bohdan Bunchak, Oleksandr Burlaka, Uliana Bychenkova, Daria Chernyshova, Davyd Chychkan, Anna Daučíková, Jeremy Deller, De Ne De Collective, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Selma Doborac, Experimental Jetset, Mekhitar Garabedian, Gelitin, Shilpa Gupta, Danylo Halkin, Majd Abdel Hamid, Ksenia Hnylytska, Iman Issa, Nikita Kadan, Tomáš Kajánek, Šejla Kamerić, Franz Kapfer, Nikolay Karabinovych, Mikhail Kaufman, Ivan Kavaleridze, Dana Kavelina, Roksolana Kit, Alina Kleytman, Maksym Khodak, Anna Khvyl, Július Koller, Oleksa Konopelko, Arnold Kordium, Zoriana Kozak, Kreizik, Collective Kukhnia, Zofia Kulik, Sasha Kurmaz, Natalia Kushnir, Kaja Kusztra, Hamlet Lavastida, The Laundry Collective, Livyj Bereh, Aksel Lundin, Mary Lydon, Kateryna Lysovenko, Yevhen Makarov, Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei, Daryna Mamaisur, Mangelos, Judy Millar, mountaincutters, Marina Naprushkina, Henrike Naumann, Yves Netzhammer, Leonid Osyka, Daniel Otero Torres, Dan Perjovschi, Patrycja Plich, Oleksii Podat, Anna Potiomkina, Olena Pronkina, Laure Prouvost, Remembering Peace, Daniil Revkovskiy, Mariia Rusinkevych, Georgia Sagri, Olesia Saiienko, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Toni Schmale, Anton Shebetko, Alexey Shmurak and Oleg Shpudeiko, Nicole Six & Paul Petritsch, Alisa Sizykh, Yuliia Solntseva, Anna Sorokovaya, Hito Steyerl, Miriam Stoney, Superflex, Waldemar Tatarczuk, Wolfgang Tillmans, Vasyl Tkachenko, Bogdan Tomashevsky, Darya Tsymbalyuk, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, Dziga Vertov, Clemens von Wedemeyer / eeefff, Myroslav Yaremak, Orest Zaborskyi, Marharyta Zhurunova and Bohdan Lokatyr, Anna Zilahi, Anna Zvyagintseva.
Thanks to our supportive partners:
Ars Electronica, Asortymentna Kimnata, Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport, Department for Cultural Affairs of the City of Vienna, Dovzhenko Centre, ERSTE Foundation, L’Internationale, Foundation for Arts Initiatives, Goethe-Institut, Galeria Labirynt, Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp), Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, MuseumsQuartier Wien ( MQ), mumok, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Museum Crisis Center, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Other Edges project (hablarenarte, KAIR, MeetFactory, Visual Culture Research Center), Sigrid Rausing Trust, Sorry, No Rooms Available, springerin, Sturzenegger-Stiftung, TBA21, tranzit.at, tranzit.org (Bratislava, Budapest, Bucharest, Cluj, Iași, Prague, Vienna), and the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.
Graphic design concept: Stefaniia Bodnia and Aliona Ciobanu
Venues:
Kyiv, Ukraine: The River Wailed Like a Wounded Beast
Curators: Stanislav Bytiutskyi, Aliona Penzii, Oleksandr Teliuk
Dovzhenko Center, Vasylkivska, 1
Runtime: October 5 – December 29, 2023
Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine: On the Periphery of War
Curators: Alona Karavai, Roman Khimei, Yarema Malashchuk, Anton Usanov
Asortymentna Kimnata, Sichovykh Striltsiv, 15
Runtime: October 7–30, 2023
Uzhhorod, Ukraine: Where Are We Now, After All Those Endlessly Repeated Words?
Curators: Petro Ryaska, Daria Shevtsova
Sorry No Rooms Available, Intourist-Zakarpattia Hotel, Ploshcha Kyryla i Mefodiya, 5
Runtime: October 8 – November 12, 2023
Vienna, Austria: Main exhibition
Curators: Serge Klymko, Hedwig Saxenhuber and Georg Schöllhammer
Augarten Contemporary, Scherzergasse, 1A and independent spaces in Vienna
Runtime: October 17 – December 17, 2023
Warsaw, Poland: Museum Forum: Ukrainian Museums In the War Between russia and Ukraine: Professionalism, Cooperation, Solidarity
Curator: Olha Honchar
Museum of Modern Art, Wybrzeże Kościuszkowskie, 22
Event Date: October 23, 2023
Lublin, Poland: This Is Just an Exhibition
Curator: Waldemar Tatarczuk
Galeria Labirynt, J. Popiełuszki, 5
Runtime: October 27 – January 22, 2024
Antwerp, Belgium: DISPATCHES postcard project
Curators: Nav Haq, Vasyl Cherepanyn
M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp), Leuvenstraat, 32