On Curating Exhibitions During the War

I should have started this essay by describing how I failed as a curator.

This happened during a solo exhibition of the artist Stanislav Turina, “A Few Kilograms of Exhibitions,” in Kyiv, which consisted of six personal projects—four old unrealized ideas, one that was done once elsewhere, and one that was an entirely new production. These followed one after the other over the course of two weeks. But what do I mean by “a mistake” in curating? More precisely, what do I mean by “a mistake” in curating a solo exhibition during the war? My mistake, it turns out, was the word “mistake.”

The artist Stanislav Turina corrects me and calls this “mistake” an instance of “raw art.” I reply that rawness is life in its fluidity and timeliness.

The “kilograms” in the title, Turina continues, do not refer to physical weight but to the heaviness of life. I add: the heaviness of time, thoughts, dreams, delusions, and decisions.

“A Few Kilograms of Exhibitions” resulted from multiple conversations, remarks, references, quotes, memories, and corrections. We were searching for answers to questions related to art—like What is the subject matter of art?—and some not related to art—like How to cook stuffed peppers? That is why it was not so much the gallery space that was important, as the space between the artist and the curator. A space where there is trust, in which possibilities for risks and critical thinking may be born. The exhibition was an opportunity to share this intimate space with other people, with the audience.

Could we—me as a curator and Turina as an artist—have done something else? For example, one unified exhibition instead of six changing shows? Could we have created something more convenient and accessible to the audience so they would not have to return several times a week during blackouts to have a different experience of the artist-run space?

I think about my curatorial incapacity because I am unable to find answers to many questions on my own. But I have the opportunity to look at these problems in concert with the artist and the viewers, who are also looking for answers to a question similar to the one posed by German romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin: Why a poet in times of poverty? Why art in a country at war? (And how many times should the word “war” be repeated to problematize as deeply as possible the context of life in Kyiv today?)

This question weighs on all of us, like the low ceilings of basements. It smells of dampness and mold because it seems like nobody has the strength to repeat the word “war” anymore—it is everywhere, even in the unspoken.

Doubts about the subject matter, power, and possibilities of art are regular topics of discussion here. Turina says that until 2024, he had not had any personal exhibitions for seven years.

“Why are we doing this? Why are you doing this?” I ask the artist.

We are doing this exhibition, for which we will not receive payment, in an artist-run space.

“To continue,” says Turina.

A few days ago, he thought it might be worth postponing everything for a while longer.

At the exhibition Turina gave me a red pencil once—for good luck. I had never considered good luck in the context of contemporary art: What is it?

“A Few Kilograms of Exhibitions” became for us like railroad tracks connecting disparate stations—days, weeks, the experiences of different years, and a war stretched out in time.

Turina ironically says that he is an artist recognized by the Ukrainian editorial offices of Vogue and Forbes. He has experience working as an artist and curator in an art collective that represented Ukraine at the Venice Biennale. He is one of the founders of Ateliernormalno, a studio for neurodivergent artists. He occasionally teaches, organizes workshops, and speaks a lot, defending the rights of artists with Down syndrome. He cares for his artistic community, both those close to him socially, and those close to him in thoughts and ideas. He has experience volunteering in a psychiatric hospital. He sells his small paper art, like postcards, to help the army, particularly artists in the military.

Let me describe one of his installations: out of all six projects, only one was created during the preparatory conversations for “A Few Kilograms of Exhibitions.” This is Suns Over Ukraine, which looked like this: in the middle of a dark gallery space, there were worn-out shoes, from which light was radiating, barely illuminating the space. There was an odd number of these shoes—one half of a pair was missing. All these shoes belong to Turina. However, they are not about his experience per se but about the people he met in Ukraine and beyond. About people who walk the front line or those who left Ukraine. About those for whom, as the artist says, shoes are waiting at home but they may not make it. And also about the fact that at some point in life, the paths shared with loved ones and relatives diverge, perhaps forever.

Writing this text in English, I am drawn to how similar the pronunciation of the words “sun” and “son” is. Turina has no children, but he is a son: one of his works was dedicated to his father, and another to his mother. Living during the war and looking at it through a woman’s gaze, I cannot help but appreciate this important metaphor at the level of language. Not only sons but, more inclusively, children—those who create history today, if only because they were born into it. Whatever history turns out to be, they already form its trace, its light and shadow.

Following Hal Foster, we could call this an art of lost parts, which is formed from filling and emptying, memory and loss.1 Its integrity lies in ruptures and contradictions. In the contemporary Ukrainian context, several exhibitions highlight this idea: “Other Parts in the Next Quarter” (2022), “Our Years, Our Words, Our Losses, Our Searches, Our Us” (2023), “Peering into the Gaps” (2024), and now also “A Few Kilograms of Exhibitions” (2024).

Turina calls his artworks “poor,” referring primarily to the materials he uses—sticks, stones, thread, and whatever surrounds him in everyday life. But sometimes, ironically, it’s about his economic situation. I told him that his art does not simply tell stories; it creates space for the viewer to coexist with the work.

This art is not about the aesthetic. It is about bread and wine—words and things.

There was no curatorial text at the exhibition but there was a dictionary in which we described the experience of working on the exhibition. Every word, spoken and unspoken (especially during the war), becomes essential. The dictionary was hung on the gallery wall, and not long after the exhibition opened viewers began to supplement it, adding words like “fluidity,” “poverty,” “exhibition,” “war,” “chance,” “result,” “violence,” and others. In this way, the dictionary absorbed individual experiences and became collective.

We talk about collective experiences, memory, and trauma. In an old book by Ukrainian writer Taras Prokhasko, my gaze stopped at the statement “We are such a dangerous word.” I began to ask: Do the artist and curator become “we” during the exhibition? Is it the artist, curator, and viewer together who become “we”? What do we all have in common? Do we all see the same things?

Looking at war in wartime, I touch my imperfect body, understanding its boundaries and limits. I feel where my hand is, where my knee is, and where my stomach is, which contracts when I breathe. I think about where my body hurts and what exactly is hurting it. I feel my pulse to understand the rhythm of my heartbeat in the rhythm of news updates. I see the simplicity of my life during a difficult time.

Someone nearby feels their earlobe, wrist, and chin. Examines their hair—a new gray strand.

“A Few Kilograms of Exhibitions” is about an attempt to recognize your body and the bodies of others around you: what they are, their dimensions, how much they weigh. It is also about an attempt to measure memory, or at least to list certain essential things so as to not forget them. It’s about continuation—like the torn sheets of paper Turina displayed during the first four phases of the exhibition, on which he recorded whom he remembered in his works.

In August 2022, the exhibition “Other Parts in the Next Quarter” took place in Kyiv. It was named after one of the works presented in the exhibition, a drawing by Katya Libkind of the body of a person who died from shelling—her remains were indeed found in another part of the quarter. I read this as a metaphor about the experience of life during wartime when, after every terrible tragedy, you have to put your body back together. With all our exhibitions, we continue to talk about the same thing: the continuation of things, words, and culture. About losses and memories.

It would be wrong to ask how to create exhibitions during the war because what is important is not what form these exhibition take but that they take place and continue even after the walls of the gallery have been emptied. Even after they are finished, you can return to them.

I would say that an exhibition during the war is not a message, or an idea, or a thought but a vital clarification—a specification of what life is like in unacceptably intimate proximity to death and loss, both your own and that of any other life.