Opening: Thursday, June 5, 2025, 7 p.m.
Duration: June 6, 2025 – January 2026
In the current global preoccupation with Ukraine, art rarely comes into focus – and the queer community even more rarely. The Schwules Museum is therefore presenting something extraordinary: “A Heart That Beats – Focus on Queer Ukrainian Art” is the first group exhibition to show queer Ukrainian art in the context of the history of queer communities in Ukraine – under the Soviet regime, in the first years of independence, and currently in resistance to the Russian invasion. The artistic positions tell of struggles against discrimination and exclusion, trace the influence of historically significant moments on queer bodies and queer relationships, and show how queer identity, gender, love and belonging are currently discussed and represented in Ukraine.
The diverse relationships between history, art and the queer community in Ukraine are told in three chapters. First, queer elective affinities in Ukrainian history up to 1991 are traced. At that time, queer bodies were largely invisible, queer art was not part of the art scene, and there was no easy access to the queer community. In the next chapter, which tells the story of the first years of Ukrainian independence from 1991-2014, we see how a queer infrastructure emerged in Ukraine. Queer artists break taboos and gain freedom of action in the face of resistance from conservative, religious and far-right groups. The final chapter takes us from 2014 to the present, starting with the Russian occupation of Crimea and ending with the complete invasion in 2022. This chapter focuses on a new generation of Ukrainian artists who, in the midst of violence, destruction and loss, are finding ways to process war traumas, preserve memory and make queer life in Ukraine visible.
“A Heart that Beats” is an art exhibition that – as an explicit concern of the two curators – primarily emphasizes the vibrancy of Ukrainian queer culture. The artists on show work in multimedia – there are textile works, installations, video works, drawings and photographs. Reflection on their own history is often the starting point, as many works have historical references, deal artistically with archive material or seek biographical approaches. Other works deal with the current impositions and joys of being queer in a homophobic world. Many of the participating artists’ works are being shown in Germany for the first time.
Artists: Yana Bachynska / Jan Bačynsjkyj, Vic Bakin, Yevgenia Belorusets, Anatoly Belov, Andrii Dostliev, Ihor Dychenko, Anton Karyuk, Mykhailo Koptiev, Alina Kleytman, Anton Shebetko, Svitlana Shymko & Galka Yarmanova, Sergei Parajanov
Curators:
Anton Shebetko (he/him) is a Ukrainian artist, photographer, curator, and writer from Kyiv who currently lives in Amsterdam. Most of his research is devoted to the forgotten queer history of Ukraine; part of it was recently published in his book “A Very Brief and Subjective Queer History of Ukraine”. His work has been exhibited at the FOAM Museum and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Photo Elysée Lausanne, BWA Studio Wroclaw, Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, nGbK Berlin and PinchukArtCentre Kyiv.
Maria Vtorushyna (they/them) are a curator, researcher and writer with a particular interest in notions of freedom, queer and feminist epistemologies, gender diversity, and coloniality of gender. They were a researcher at Centre for Gender and Diversity at Maastricht University, an editor-in-chief of the Artslooker Magazine, and a curatorial fellow at Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin). Currently working at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Maria led Kyiv Art Week as the director from 2016 to 2022.
Supported by Hannchen-Mehrzweck-Stiftung and Between Bridges Foundation
Photo: Vic Bakin, from the series “To Be Who We Want To Be” (2022) [Detail]
