Berlin Bode Museum shows the “Ukrainian Madonna”

0
67

Berlin's Bode Museum, known for its medieval sculptures, is now also showing contemporary art – from the Ukraine. Works by ten artists enter into a dialogue with selected pieces from the Bode Collection.

The motif of the Madonna and Child is 2000 years old – here is a 21st century version

On February 25, 2022, the second day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Hungarian journalist András Földes photographed a young woman breastfeeding a child in the Kiev metro. The city's metro stations had become the places that promised shelter to residents of the Ukrainian capital. Here they took refuge. Földes posted the photo of the breastfeeding woman on Instagram. It went viral and became famous within hours.

The artist Maryna Solomennykova, who lives in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, used the motif of the picture to create her work “Madonna of Kiev”. “This woman with her child was a symbol for all the Ukrainian mothers who have to hide from Russian attacks in air raid shelters.”  

Her “Ukrainian Madonna” received even more attention than the photo that inspired her. A copy of it hangs in a church in Naples and the original is now in the recently opened exhibition “Timeless. Ukrainian Contemporary Art in Times of War” in Berlin's Bode Museum. The curator Olesia Sobkovych, who herself comes from the Ukraine, chose it  along with a dozen other artworks from Ukraine.

Ukrainian art as a guest at the Bode Museum in Berlin

Focus on Ukraine: new accents at the Bode Museum 

The Bode Museum is considered one of the most beautiful museums in the German capital. It is part of the Museum Island and appears to rise out of the water where the Spree divides. Its round dome is reminiscent of a temple. The museum houses an internationally renowned collection of medieval sculptures and Byzantine rarities – including numerous carved wooden images of Christ, Mary and saints as well as complete altar groups.

Nefertiti: The most beautiful face in Egypt

< p>This atmospheric place, with its spacious, light-filled halls and high ceilings, is rarely crowded. Medieval sculptures are less attractive than the stars of the Berlin museum scene – the bust of Nefertiti or the Pergamon Altar. A year ago, shortly after the start of the Russian attack, thanks to the support of the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation, the museum hired art historian Olesia Sobkovych, who had fled Kiev. She had curated several large exhibitions in her hometown – also on red hot political issues, such as the children of Donbass. In the Bode-Museum she wanted to give new impetus.

“Timeless” combines medieval and modern art

The appointment of the new art historian was in line with the museum management's desire to engage with the ongoing war. The problem was to build a bridge between today and the Middle Ages. Now the modern Ukrainian exhibits, which reflect the experience of the first months of the war partly in epic and religious forms, stand between the medieval exhibits.

Olesia Sobkovych in the exhibition she curated

Each modern object was juxtaposed with a medieval “double” – an exhibit each expressing a similar emotion. Ukrainian art does not stand alone, but works in a larger context. In the Middle Ages it was about “fear, desperation, grief and death”, as the director of the museum's own sculpture collection, Paul Hofmann, puts it – i.e. about feelings that the Ukrainians, who had experienced the brutal war in their country on their own experience, are now familiar themselves. Through the connection to today's tragedy, medieval exhibits, according to Hofmann, “regained their astonishing vitality”, they appear “timeless”.

“The Ukrainian Madonna” in the dialogue a funerary stele

Liveliness and authenticity were the criteria on which Olesia Sobkovych based the selection of the Ukrainian works of art. Not only did she set her sights on established artists, she also brought in works by lesser-known artists. Like Maryna Solomennykova's work, the  made famous by Instagram.

Alisa Lozhkina's painting “Flight to Egypt” (r.) is hanging next to a 15th-century bas-relief on the same subject

Combining social media art and medieval woodcut is a risky proposition. The curator Sobkovych contributed her expertise. “It's not charity, our Ukrainian colleagues are superior to us, especially when it comes to digitization,” said Martin Hoernes, Secretary General of the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation. The foundation also finances other settings by Ukrainians in German museums.

In the “Timeless” exhibition, a rare find from Egypt enters into a dialogue with the “Madonna of Kiev”:  a grave stele depicting a breastfeeding young woman from the 4th or 5th century AD. The title of the exhibition can be experienced in harmony with these two figures – their effect is “timeless” – in contrast to wars, which will eventually come to an end.

The real “Madonna”, a woman named Tatjana Bliznjak, reached a safe place in western Ukraine a few days after András Földes took the photo of her.

The exhibition “Timeless. Contemporary Ukrainian Art in Times of War” in Berlin Bode Museum runs from 03/17/2023 to 03/17/2024.