Kyiv has become the second city after Lviv to host the exhibition project “Kherson: NOT/Stolen. Studies and Homages.” The project is an artistic response to one of the most cynical crimes of the Russian occupation — the illegal removal of paintings and cultural objects from the Kherson Regional Art Museum named after Oleksii Shovkunenko in the autumn of 2022.
The exhibition in the capital is presented at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War. The location adds a powerful layer of meaning: Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine is not only a battle for territory but also a systematic attempt to erase Ukrainian culture, memory, and identity.
“We dreamed of bringing Kherson to Kyiv — and we did it. With this exhibition, we want to draw attention to all Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied by Russia and to the people who live there and are waiting for liberation,” says project initiator and curator Olena Balaba.
According to Alina Dotsenko, director of the Kherson Art Museum, Russian occupiers removed more than 10,000 items from the museum’s collection. Today, these works remain in territories controlled by Russia, while the aggressor state provides no transparent information about their whereabouts and uses the looted art for propaganda.
After the occupation of Kherson on March 1, 2022, museum staff tried to save the collections. Although it was impossible to protect thousands of artworks physically, the museum managed to preserve its documentation, which now allows experts to fight for the return of the stolen heritage.
“We were under constant threat. Physically saving 14,000 works was impossible. But we preserved the documentation, and today we are the first Ukrainian museum working with Interpol to recover what was stolen,” Dotsenko explains.
Thanks to these records, the museum continues to remind the world about every missing artwork and prevent it from disappearing from cultural memory.
For art historian Olena Balaba, the project is not only about art but also about the freedom of southern Ukraine. She calls Kherson the gateway to Crimea and emphasizes that the exhibition is a form of resistance to the occupation of both the peninsula and the left bank of the Kherson region.
Before the full-scale invasion, Balaba visited Kherson several times and remembers it as a warm, cozy, and beautiful city. The news of the museum’s looting deeply affected her and motivated her to act.
Together with colleagues, she decided to bring public attention back to artists whose works were stolen from the museum — including Mykola Pymonenko, Ivan Aivazovsky, David Burliuk, Viktor Zaretskyi, Maria Prymachenko, and many others.
The idea was immediately supported by renowned Kyiv artist Matvii Vaisberg, who became one of the project’s main organizers. Roza Tapanova, a native of Kherson and director of the Babyn Yar National Historical Memorial Preserve, joined as coordinator. At the same time, Oleksii Baula and Anton Logov became co-curators of the exhibitions.
The concept of the project is simple yet powerful: contemporary Ukrainian artists choose a painting from the Kherson museum’s stolen collection and create either a study or a homage inspired by it.
A homage is an artistic tribute — a reflection on an earlier artwork — while a study is a reinterpretation or exploration of a historical piece.
In this way, the exhibition symbolically returns the stolen works to Ukraine’s cultural space through new artistic interpretations.
Once the Kherson Art Museum fully resumes work in its building, these newly created artworks will become part of its collection.
The first exhibition was held in Zenyk Art Gallery in Lviv, dedicated to the third anniversary of Kherson’s liberation on November 11, 2022. It presented 29 works created by 21 artists.
The Kyiv exhibition is even larger, featuring 38 artworks created by 28 contemporary artists from across Ukraine.
According to Matvii Vaisberg, any Ukrainian artist can join the project and help preserve the memory of stolen cultural heritage.
One of the most striking dialogues at the exhibition centers around the work of Maria Prymachenko.
Two contemporary artists — Oksana Tsiupa and Ilona Kuznetsova — independently chose Prymachenko’s painting “Tomatoes in a Vase” as inspiration.
As a result, visitors see three interconnected stories: a reproduction of the stolen painting and two modern interpretations that differ greatly in form and mood.
Ilona Kuznetsova created a delicate monochrome homage — a white sculpture inspired by classical antiquity. Even without color, Prymachenko’s visual language remains instantly recognizable.
The piece also introduces an inclusive dimension: its tactile form allows people with visual impairments to experience the artwork through touch.
Meanwhile, Oksana Tsiupa created a vibrant textile appliqué interpretation. She says Prymachenko’s art taught her not to fear bold colors, ornaments, and stylization.
For Oksana Tsiupa, participation in the project also carries a deeply personal meaning.
A textile sculptor known for creating artistic dolls and fabric figures, she evacuated from a besieged town near Kyiv in March 2022 via the now-famous Romaniv Bridge.
After the Kyiv region was liberated, her mother died. The artist still cannot fulfill her mother’s wish to be buried in their village cemetery because the village in the Zaporizhzhia region remains under Russian occupation.
At the exhibition, Tsiupa also presented a symbolic installation — a knitted tree representing occupied and free territories of Ukraine. Visitors can attach green ribbons to its branches as a sign of hope for the liberation of all Ukrainian lands.
Another powerful artwork in the exhibition is a sculpture by Lviv artist Volodymyr Semkiv, inspired by Mykhailo Zhuk’s 1914 painting “Fairy Tale. The Dance of Beetles.”
While the original painting is bright and decorative, Semkiv’s interpretation transforms it into a dramatic image: a wooden figure of a boy surrounded by drones — a symbol of the daily threat faced by civilians in Kherson and across Ukraine.
Equally striking is the diptych study by Denys Nedoluzhenko, now a junior sergeant in the State Special Transport Service, inspired by Kostiantyn Kryzhytskyi’s 1899 painting “The Road.”
The original depicts a peaceful Ukrainian landscape with fields of wheat under the summer sun. In Nedoluzhenko’s reinterpretation, the road becomes a battlefield — a place that exists only as long as it is defended from Russian drones and missiles.
The exhibition brings together works by 28 well-known contemporary Ukrainian artists, including Matvii Vaisberg, Oleksandr Zhyvotkov, Akhra Adjindzhal, Anton Logov, Hanna Kryvolap, Vladyslav Shereshevskyi, Katya Lisova, and Maks Vityk.
The project “Kherson: NOT/Stolen” serves multiple purposes: it reminds the world about stolen artworks, supports the museum’s efforts to recover them, and creates new cultural heritage in the process.
Organizers believe the initiative should expand and inspire similar projects dedicated to other Ukrainian cities and museums affected by Russian occupation — including Crimea, Mariupol, Melitopol, and Kakhovka.
“We want other museums to join the initiative. There should be exhibitions like ‘Crimea: NOT/Stolen,’ ‘Mariupol: NOT/Stolen,’ ‘Melitopol: NOT/Stolen.’ This project about Ukrainian museum treasures stolen by Russia must grow and travel around the world,” says Olena Balaba.
Foto: instagram.com/art_museum_ks
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