Exhibition "Oleksandr Sukholit. Tapestry"

The human being and the universe, love, family, war, and peace — since time immemorial, these concepts have been encoded in ornaments, visualized in pagan idols, in the terracotta drawings on amphorae, in folk paintings — and in tapestries. This is how the culture of our civilization, its art, and its philosophy were formed.

A tapestry has never been just a decorative household item. Using dyes from natural plants and minerals, wool, and silk, the masters of Egypt and Athens created multidimensional works worthy of the most exquisite palaces — and eventually, museums. During the Renaissance, tapestries transformed the paintings of Raphael and Rubens into true luxury.

In the 1950s, Nelson Rockefeller commissioned Picasso to create a tapestry based on "Guernica." Together with the French craftswoman Jacqueline de La Baume Dürrbach, the artist effectively translated the language of the oil brush into the language of wool and silk threads: the aggressive, contrasting painting took on the appearance of an ancient, noble historical manifesto. Since 1985, this "tapestry of memory" has hung at the UN headquarters, at the entrance to the Security Council, as a reminder to diplomats of the horrors of war and the importance of peace negotiations.

Nearby, in the UN's Blue Room, another tapestry is exhibited — "The Tree of Life" by masters of the legendary Reshetylivka factory, whose history began in the Poltava region back in the Cossack era. Its unique floral ornament appeals to the primal sources of inspiration and creativity, symbolizing the continuity of lineage and the connection between generations — the very foundation of the Ukrainian mentality, something that cannot be severed by any tragedy like Guernica.

Oleksandr Sukholit continues this thousand-year-old line. A sculptor who thinks in terms of woven surfaces, he works within the tradition of "tapestries of memory" — the same space where Anselm Kiefer works today with his layers of earth, straw, ash, and lead, with canvases woven from myths, history, poetry, and metaphysical materials. Sukholit’s tapestries are monumental and expressive, like Renaissance frescoes, yet deeply tactile: the texture, the stroke, the breath of the material.

This exhibition is about how one of humanity’s oldest media becomes an instrument for exploring the collective unconscious and a primary source for the new intellectual pursuits of contemporary art.

We look forward to seeing you at the opening on July 23 at 6:00 PM.