Castello di Rivoli | A letter from the front

Works by artists from Ukraine

Curated by #nikitakadan with Giulia Colletti

10 – 13 March 2022, 11 am – 7 pm

Castello di Rivoli #museo d'Arte Contemporanea presents a selection of filmic works and moving images by contemporary artists from Ukraine titled A Letter From the Front, curated by artist #nikitakadan (Kiev, 1982) with #giuliacolletti.

Ukrainian artists who participate in this event with their works are currently blocked in the cities under siege or have managed to take refuge in the border areas or in neighboring countries. They are mobilizing within or outside the borders of the war-torn country, measuring themselves against distances through their own bodies. Some of them were unable to recover their hard drives before leaving their homes and studios, and therefore this project can only deal with the ways in which artworks are saved in digital format on servers, clouds and #web platforms.

The works presented are by:

AntiGONNA

Nikita Kadan

Yaroslav Futymsky

Nikolay Karabinovych

Dana Kavelina

Alina Kleytman

Yuri Leiderman

Katya Libkind

Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Himey

Lada Nakonechna

R.E.P.

Revkovsky / Rachinsky

Oleksiy Sai

"The greater the distances are between all of us," the participating artists declare, "the more united we feel in our demand to stop the Russian aggression in Ukraine. We could not be more solidary than we are now, while we face the fact that years of political struggles are in danger of dissolving and going up in smoke. The selection of filmic works and moving images presented on this occasion do not strictly speak of the new war. They are rather evidence of the work that has been done (or we thought we had done) to prevent the conflict. These works can be seen as a premonition of an evident and inevitable catastrophe, which too often in the history of Ukraine has been tangible."

"The Museum today," says Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, "is a place that must be able to conceive its own activity at different speeds, that of reflection which is the basis of exhibition projects that are planned over a long period of time, and that of a reaction that needs to be quick in extreme situations, such as those we are experiencing, in which even a museum can and perhaps must do its part, always in the spirit of sharing, cultural production and peace."

The screenings are introduced by a conversation between #nikitakadan, who is currently in Kiev, and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev.

*Letter From the Front is the title of an iconic Soviet painting from 1947 by Aleksandr Laktionov (Rostov-on-Don, 1910 – Moscow, 1972).

The conversation between #nikitakadan and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev will be broadcast via Instagram live at 11 am on Thursday 10 March 2022.

The screenings will be broadcast in attendance at #castellodirivoli Theater from 10 to 13 March from 11 am to 7 pm and, starting from 11 March, also on the Digital Cosmos page of #castellodirivoli and on the #web page of 'Il Giornale dell'Arte'.

Biography

Nikita Kadan (Kiev, Ukraine, 1982) lives and works in Kiev. He is a member of the R.E.P. (Experimental Revolutionary Space, since 2004) and co-founder and member of the curatorial and activist group Hudrada (Artistic committee, 2008). He often works in interdisciplinary collaborations - with architects, Human Rights Watch activists and sociologists.