A major study of Ukrainian art from 1900 to the mid-1930s - with loans from major museums in
Ukraine elsewhere in Europe the United States (including MoMA) and Israel. In the Eye of
the Storm presents the groundbreaking art produced in what is now Ukraine in the early 20th
century - at a time when the country did not exist as the independent state it had previously
been and is again today. The book will accompany an exhibition that will trace the artistic
developments between 1900 and the mid-1930s focusing on three key regional centres - Kharkiv
Kyiv and Odesa - against a complicated socio-political backdrop of collapsing empires World
War I the Revolution with the ensuing civil war and the creation of Soviet Ukraine. The
publication will feature avant-garde art created in Ukraine from a Ukrainian perspective while
acknowledging the complex geopolitical structures and identities within which it functioned:
Ukrainian Russian Jewish and Polish. To highlight the dynamism and diversity of the artistic
scene in these three cities during the period the book will feature works in various media -
from traditional oil paintings and drawings to collages graphic and theatre designs and
cinema. The book is highly topical in light of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia
which exploits cultural historical and linguistic myths and stereotypes as the pretext for its
violence.
