“Alla Gorskaya. Boryviter” is the first retrospective exhibition of the artist, which presents more than 100 works of painting, graphics, sketches of monumental works from museum and private collections, as well as archival materials that highlight the creative and social activities of the sixties artist and her close circle.

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The exposition introduces visitors to sketches of the most famous mosaic panels created by the Horska group in Kyiv and Eastern Ukraine, scenographic decisions of Lesya Tanyuk's performances, portraits of prominent Ukrainian figures — Vasily Stus, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Vasyl Symonenko, Ivan Drach, Lina Kostenko and others. Especially for the exhibition, contemporary Ukrainian artists Alexey Sai and Mykola Marusik created a video lighting installation based on the stained glass window “Shevchenko” destroyed 60 years ago. Mother”.

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Alla Gorska is a sixties Ukrainian artist, dissident, public figure and human rights activist. Full of dramatic events, Alla Gorskaya's story painfully echoes the present: during her lifetime — bans and dismantling works, expulsion from the Union of Artists, persecution by the KGB, and later a brutal murder; now — mosaic panels of the artist in Mariupol destroyed by the Russian occupiers. In particular, the composition “Boryweather”, whose name appears in the title of the exhibition, suffered terrible damage as a result of shelling of the city by Russian troops.

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Today, all the creative works of the Horska-monumentalist are practically lost: most of her works fell under occupation in 2014, only two mosaics have survived in the Ukraine-controlled territory.

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Today, Ukraine is waging war not only for the restoration of its territorial integrity, but also for its own civilizational choice. Without the sixties and their struggle for human and national rights, without their creativity, it is difficult to imagine today's Ukrainian state and culture. The soul and engine of this generation was Alla Gorskaya.

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The opening of the exhibition will take place on March 14 at 18:00.

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Curators of the exhibition: Elena Grozovskaya, Tatiana Voloshyna, Mykhailo Kulivnik, Ekaterina Lisova.

Organizers: National Center “Ukrainian House”, Art Foundation “Dukat”

In cooperation with the Alla Gorskaya and Viktor Zaretsky Foundation.

Project partners: JSC “Oschadbank”, Visa.

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Working hours:

Tuesday — Sunday,

11am — 7pm,

Monday is a day off.

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Ticket price:
full — 100 UAH,
preferential — 50 UAH (for schoolchildren and students).

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Entrance is free for:
pensioners, children under 7 years old, persons with disabilities of 1-2 groups, participants in the liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, combatants, ATO participants and members of their families, servicemen of military service, museum workers, members of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, holders of membership cards CIMAM, ICOM, AICA (with valid ID).

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REFERENCE

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Alla Gorskaya was the daughter of the famous Soviet filmmaker Alexander Gorsky, who at different times headed the major film studios of the USSR: Lenfilm, Yalta, Kiev and Odessa. During World War II, Alla survived two blockade winters, staying with her mother in Leningrad.

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In 1943, the Gorski family moved to Kiev, in 1948 Alla entered the Kyiv State Art Institute.

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In 1952, Gorska married a young teacher of the Art Institute Viktor Zaretsky, with whom they subsequently created many joint works.

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In 1961, the artist, brought up in a Russian-speaking family, consciously switches to Ukrainian.

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In the early 1960s Alla Gorska, together with Viktor Zaretsky, Vasyl Stus, Vasyl Symonenko, Ivan Svitlychnyky, stood at the origins of the Creative Youth Club “Modernyk” — the center of revival of Ukrainian cultural life in Kyiv. Horska and Zaretsky's apartment on Repin Street and their workshop on Filatov Street were meeting places of the sixties.

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In the mid-1960s, the thaw was changed by the Brezhnev reaction. Harassment, surveillance, searches, imprisonment of representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia began. The artist sharply responded to the series of arrests in 1965, sending a complaint in the name of the prosecutor. She corresponded with convicted friends, supported their families morally and financially, traveled to trials, and organized fund-raisers for the families of political prisoners.

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In April 1968, Gorskaya signed a resonant letter of protest by 139 scientific and cultural figures to the leaders of the USSR against illegal arrests and closed trials of dissidents. Administrative repression began against the signatories, Gorsk was expelled from the Union of Artists for the second time. In those days, this meant practically professional death — because those expelled from the Union did not receive orders and could not even buy materials for work.

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In August 1962 Alla Gorska, Les Tanyuk and Vasily Simonenko as members of the committee of the Creative Youth Club, which was supposed to “investigate the crimes of the Stalinist period of violation of legality”, visited the site of the mass burial of victims of the NKVD in the Bykivnyansk forest. They appealed to the Kyiv City Council with a request to investigate and arrange the graves. After that, Symonenko was brutally beaten in a police station, Tanyuk was attacked in Odessa, and Gorskaya was monitored.

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On November 28, 1970, Alla Gorskaya left her Kiev apartment and went to Vasilkov, where her father-in-law lived. The husband and 16-year-old son did not wait for the return of Gorskaya. The body was found three days later in a cellar in the house of the father-in-law of the artist Ivan Zaretsky. The next day, the decapitated body of the father-in-law was also found on the tracks near the Fastiv-2 railway station.

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