Kharkiv has been selected as the host city of the 2019 Biennale of Contemporary Ukrainian Art.

Kharkiv will be the second city in Ukraine to host the Youth Biennale of Contemporary Ukrainian Art.

The first city, traditionally, was Kyiv — the 2017 Biennale was held at the Art Arsenal.

The Youth Biennale of Contemporary Art is one of the largest and organizationally most complex art events in Ukraine, and it is very important for the Kharkiv region to host it. To make the preparation as transparent as possible and the results meaningful, we encourage you to closely monitor this process and make public its various stages.

The Biennale itself is to take place next year, in 2019, and on Tuesday, June 5th, a press conference of the round table participants will be dedicated to the beginning of preparations for the Kharkiv Biennale.

Speakers at the briefing:

Yuriy Rybachuk – Deputy Minister of Culture of Ukraine

Oleg Yatsyna – Director of the Department of Culture and Tourism, Kharkiv State Regional Administration 

Svitlana Babytska – Director of the Department of Culture, Kharkiv City Council

Tetyana Tumasyan – Director of the Kharkiv Municipal Gallery, member of the Expert Council on Contemporary Art, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine 

Yulia Vaganova – Deputy General Director of the Art Arsenal

The event will be attended by representatives of various cultural institutions, well-known Kharkiv artists, including Pavlo Makov, Tetyana Borzunova, Hamlet Zinkivsky, who aspire to work with the Biennale.

The main topics of the press conference:

What is the Biennale of Contemporary Art, its principles, conditions, formats;

Finding a location that could host the Biennale of such magnitude and scale;

How the 2019 Biennale will differ from the previous one (preliminary working plans);

Features of the biennial in Kharkov.

After the press conference, from 17:00 to 18:00, there will be a presentation of the works of the last year’s Biennale winners:

The 1st place award — Maria Plotnikova, “Stik Apart”: a performance that describes interaction between people.

The 2nd place award — Piotr Armyanovsky, “Me and Mariupol”: a film about decline and nostalgia.

Other participants of the round table:

Yevhen Karas — gallery owner, founder of “Karas Gallery”, President of the Association of Contemporary Artists of Ukraine, Chairman of the Expert Council on Contemporary Art at the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine.

Oksana Barshinova — art historian, head of the department of the XX – early XXI century art, National Art Museum of Ukraine, curator of exhibitions of contemporary art at the National Art Museum, lecturer at the department of theory and history of Art, NAFAA (National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture). She is a member of the Expert Council of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine on Contemporary Art, co-curator of the visual program of interregional forums Dofa.Fund (SlobodaCult, GaliciaCult, DonCult).

Lizaveta Herman, Maria Lanko — curators of the contest-festival of creative youth Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2018.

Oleksandr Solovyov — Assistant Director General of the National Cultural, Art and Museum Complex “Art Arsenal”, curator, art expert, member of the Expert Council of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine on Contemporary Art.

Natalia Ivanova — Director of the Center for Contemporary Art “YermilovCenter” in Kharkiv, member of the Expert Council of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine on Contemporary Art.