Alla Horska. Boriviter is the first retrospective exhibition of the artist, featuring over 100 works of painting, graphic art, and sketches for monumental pieces from museum and private collections, as well as archival materials highlighting the creative and civic activities of this Sixtiers artist and her close circle.
In the first three days alone, around 4,000 tickets were sold. Over the course of a month and a half, the exhibition attracted more than 51,000 visitors. On weekends, attendance ranged from 2,000 to 3,000 people. Approximately 10,000 visitors took advantage of free admission through a special access program.
Alla Horska was a Ukrainian Sixtiers artist, dissident, public figure, and human rights activist. Her life story, marked by dramatic events, resonates painfully with the present: during her lifetime—bans and dismantling of her works, expulsion from the Artists’ Union, persecution by the KGB, and ultimately her brutal murder; today—the destruction of her mosaic panels in Mariupol by Russian occupying forces. In particular, the composition Boriviter, which gives the exhibition its title, suffered severe damage as a result of shelling by Russian troops.
The exhibition introduced visitors to sketches of the most famous mosaic panels created by Horska’s group in Kyiv and eastern Ukraine, scenographic designs for Les Taniuk’s theater productions, and portraits of prominent Ukrainian cultural figures—Vasyl Stus, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Vasyl Symonenko, Ivan Drach, Lina Kostenko, and others. Specially for the exhibition, contemporary Ukrainian artists Oleksii Sai and Mykola Marusyk created a video-light installation inspired by the stained-glass work Shevchenko. Mother, destroyed 60 years ago.
Today, almost the entire monumental legacy of Horska has been lost: most of her works fell under occupation as early as 2014, and only two mosaics remain in territories under Ukrainian control.
Ukraine today is fighting not only for the restoration of its territorial integrity, but also for its civilizational choice. Without the Sixtiers and their struggle for human and national rights, without their artistic legacy, it is difficult to imagine contemporary Ukrainian statehood and culture. Alla Horska was both the soul and the driving force of this generation.
Curators: Olena Hrozovska, Tetiana Voloshyna, Mykhailo Kulivnyk, Kateryna Lisova
Organizers: National Center “Ukrainian House,” Dukat Art Foundation
In cooperation with: Alla Horska and Viktor Zaretsky Foundation