About event
The Ukrainian House National Culture Center continues to explore the phenomena and trends that shape Ukrainian art—its key figures, symbols, language, and the unfinished conversations of Ukrainian culture—and is launching a new exhibition project, "Labyrinths of Meanings. Oleksandr Dubovyk," on June 27.
The Ukrainian House aims to preserve memory, doing so during the lifetimes of those who create it. "Labyrinths of Meanings. Oleksandr Dubovyk" is part of the institutional program "Keepers of Memory. Timeless"—a project dedicated to living history, archiving, and honoring iconic figures who have shaped and continue to shape Ukrainian culture.
The work of Oleksandr Dubovyk is closely intertwined with the history of the country. The artist belongs to the generation of Ukrainian Sixtiesers (Shistdesiatnyky)—creators who formed a new artistic consciousness under conditions of strict censorship and the imposed norms of socialist realism, drawing instead on the traditions of the Ukrainian avant-garde and modernism. At a time when the regime demanded that art conform to the official doctrine, Dubovyk consistently constructed his own artistic language.
He has always remained true to inner freedom, intellectual independence, and the conviction that art must be a space for complex and bold thinking. This courage remains with the artist to this day: at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Oleksandr Dubovyk did not leave his city, continuing to work to the first sounds of sirens and explosions. This resilience resulted in the graphic series "Phantoms," which the Ukrainian House presented as early as August 2022.
The exhibition project "Labyrinths of Meanings. Oleksandr Dubovyk" will bring together over 250 works from numerous state museum and private collections across Ukraine, alongside his latest pieces created during the full-scale war. The project will stand as the most comprehensive presentation of the artist's legacy to date. The exposition will span various periods and directions of his career—ranging from early works, self-portraits, and landscapes to paintings, graphics, gouache series, sketches for monumental works, and contemporary canvases.
Over the decades, the artist has developed his own system of images and signs, in which painting becomes a way of understanding humanity, time, memory, and culture. The central image of his oeuvre is the "bouquet"—a symbol that emerged in the 1960s and has since transcended his entire body of work, evolving, growing more complex, and entering into new semantic connections. This image has taken on a significance far beyond the artist's own work: the "Bouquet" became the symbol of the annual festival of high arts, Bouquet Kyiv Stage, which takes place in Kyiv and unites music, visual arts, theater, cinema, and literature.
During the exhibition, Oleksandr Dubovyk will celebrate his 95th birthday. The display will also feature materials that offer a contemporary encounter with the artist: video interviews with Oleksandr Dubovyk, his latest works, and elements of his personal world. This section emphasizes that Dubovyk is not merely a prominent figure from the history of Ukrainian art, but an artist who lives in Kyiv and continues to work, think, and develop his unique figurative system today.
