When Faith Moves Mountains / Russian War Crimes

143 days after the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine, PinchukArtCentre (Kyiv, Ukraine) opens again on July 17th with When Faith Moves Mountains. The major group exhibition, presented in partnership with, and thanks to M HKA and the Flemish Government will put the focus on Ukraine as a country open to the world and will celebrate its relation to Europe. Russian War Crimes exhibition is integrated into the context of When Faith Moves Mountains. 

The exhibition When Faith Moves Mountains brings together works chosen from M HKA/the collection of the Flemish Community, because of their emancipatory and empowering nature. More than 40 works from international artists are being lent. Even though the collection cannot be insured to any damages of war, M HKA and the Flemish Government chose to share resources and invest a significant part of their heritage into Ukraine. They are shown in dialogue with works by Ukrainian artists, many made during the war. The outcome is a space that invites us to feel, think and reflect beyond the immediate urgencies of war.

From the M HKA collection, part of the Collection of the Flemish Community, there are works from Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin (Türkiye, 1957–2007), Francis Alÿs (Belgium, 1959), Babi Badalov (Azerbaijan, 1959), Jan Cox (Netherlands/Belgium, 1919-1980), Berlinde De Bruyckere (Belgium, 1964), Jan de Lauré (Belgium, 1978), Marlene Dumas (South Africa, 1953), Jan Fabre (Belgium, 1958), Sheela Gowda (India, 1957), Hiwa K (Irak, 1975), Barbara Kruger (United States, 1945), Mark Lewis (Canada, 1958), Kerry James Marshall (United States, 1955), Almagul Menlibayeva (Kazakhstan, 1969), Nastio Mosquito (Angola, 1981), Otobong Nkanga (Nigeria, 1974), ORLAN (France, 1947), Wilhelm Sasnal (Poland, 1972), Allan Sekula (United States, 1951–2013), Adrien Tirtiaux (Belgium, 1980) and Luc Tuymans (Belgium, 1958). 

From Ukraine there are works from Oleksandr Burlaka (1982), Oksana Chepelyk (1961), Danylo Galkin (1985), Nikita Kadan (1982), Alevtina Kakhidze (1973), Lesia Khomenko (1980), Kinder Album, Vlada Ralko (1969), Oleksii Sai (1975), Andriy Sagaidakovsky (1957), Yevhen Samborsky (1984), Anna Zvyagintseva (1986) and the group of Yarema Malashchuk (1993) and Roman Khimei (1992). Most of their works have been created during this war, displaying works that directly respond and reflect on current contexts.

Björn Geldhof, co-curator and Artistic Director of the PinchukArtCentre: “To open an exhibition in Kyiv is essential for us. We always worked for Ukrainians and to be back after 6 months is very important. Our work continues and is even more relevant now the war is ongoing. It is a symbolic moment. Ukraine was recently welcomed to the European family, now one of the leading European institutions shows powerful support in sharing its works, at its own risk, with Ukraine. This is a gesture that Ukraine is Europe.”  

Bart De Baere, co-curator and Director of M KHA: “It is not by chance that Ukraine and its president attach importance to art, in these dire circumstances, and precisely because of those. Indeed, at such a point art may engage both with the traumas of the moment and with horizons for the future and this is certainly so in Ukraine, where artists developed a unique capacity of constructive criticality.”

Russian War Crimes
Curated by Björn Geldhof and Ksenia Malykh.

Photographs are taken from all over Ukraine since the start of the war till the beginning of July. Even so, they only address a fraction of the known crimes. The Russian War Crimes culminates in a film work by Oleksii Say, who collected 4863 different verified images of war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine. The massive scale of this project combined with the aggressive editing and sound forces a state of permanent shock.

Russian War Crimes is organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and PinchukArtCentre in partnership with the Office of the President of Ukraine, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Ukrainska Pravda and Ukrainian association of professional photographers.