The exhibition project “The Return of Kherson’s Memory. Stolen Art, Preserved in Museum Art Prints. The Kherson Collection” has opened within the walls of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
In the autumn of 2022, Russia looted more than 10,000 works of art from the Oleksiy Shovkunenko Kherson Art Museum, including pieces by Aivazovsky, Vasylkivsky, Pymonenko, and Sudkovsky, as well as icon paintings, landscapes, and portraits. They labeled this as an “evacuation.” In reality, it was pillage — deliberate and planned. Russia's goal in this war is not merely the seizure of our land. Russia is purposefully destroying Ukrainian identity and erasing historical memory.
At the risk of their own lives, the staff of the Kherson Museum hid digital copies of the artworks from the occupiers. It is thanks to them that these paintings, in the format of high-quality museum art prints, are now displayed at the MFA.
Andrii Sybiha noted that culture is something that cannot be destroyed by weapons. It lives on not only in museum halls and on library shelves, but also in the memory of the people, in the language, in the way we build our homes, and in how we raise our children.
"That is exactly why Russia is so desperately trying to uproot it. It kills our artists, destroys museums, burns books, and bombs schools. What it cannot destroy, it attempts to appropriate. All this is done to erase the Ukrainian cultural memory that we have carried through centuries and replace it with its own version of our history," the Head of the MFA added.
The Minister pointed out that while Russia can destroy buildings, loot paintings, and burn libraries, the culture, identity, and memory of a nation cannot be stolen.
"Intriguingly, visitors to the Ministry are greeted on the first floor by an exhibition of contemporary Ukrainian defense solutions. Meanwhile, on the sixth floor, there is an exposition dedicated to the art stolen from us. Two floors. Two exhibitions. Two dimensions of the same war," Andrii Sybiha emphasized.
The exhibition also features a video installation by Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk titled “Explosions Near the Museum.” It tells the story of the Kherson Regional Museum, which was plundered by the occupiers. This museum preserved over seven millennia of Southern Ukraine's history and more than 173,000 diverse exhibits, ranging from Scythian gold to World War II weaponry. Two weeks before the liberation of Kherson, Russia emptied it entirely. The installation has already been showcased in leading museums across Belgium, participated in Frieze London and ARCO Madrid, and is part of the collection of the Galerie Poggy in Paris.
Currently, after a four-year absence, Russia is attempting to return to the Venice Biennale. The Minister noted that this game of the “neutrality of art” is actively used by Moscow to impose its own narratives and promote its own version of reality, while killing civilians in Ukraine on a daily basis.
"We relentlessly explain this to our partners and open the eyes of those who have not yet recognized this 'neutrality' as a real tool of aggression. Allowing an aggressor state to occupy a place on the international cultural stage while it destroys another nation's culture is also a moral stance. And it will also have consequences," the Minister stated.
Andrii Sybiha emphasized that the art stolen by Russia does not become Russian. It was, is, and will always remain Ukrainian. Ukraine will work toward its return just as persistently as it works toward everything else.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses its gratitude to Vivid Fusion, the Oleksiy Shovkunenko Kherson Regional Art Museum, and personally to the Acting Director Alina Dotsenko for making this project possible.