Lizaveta German

Lizaveta German will devote this fellowship to drafting a book about key episodes of Ukrainian art history from the 1960s to the present day, providing a road map of Ukrainian art for audiences completely unfamiliar with its history, past and present. The book is an emergency response to curiosity and even lust for knowledge about the barely visible art scene of a country undergoing a full-scale invasion before the world’s eyes. The book offers an introduction—or rather, one of many possible introductions—to the complex and challenging subject of Ukrainian art and its important narratives, taking the readers through their first steps of exploring it. German’s approach is to zoom in on selected clusters of artists and projects structured around four episodes: the underground scene of the 1960s; the first years of state independence in the early 1990s; off-spaces and self-organization movements between 2000 and the 2010s; and wartime art that emerged after 2014, with a particular focus on the full-scale phase.