Exhibition "In Search of Lost Meaning: Matvei Vaisberg"

The Babyn Yar National Historical and Memorial Preserve and the National Center "Ukrainian House" present an exhibition project dedicated to International Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed annually on January 27th, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp.

The project invites viewers to reflect on the memory of this event through the texts of public figures, quotes from survivors, archival film footage, the world's first symphony about the Holocaust composed by Dmytro Klebanov, and the works of Kyiv artist Matvei Vaisberg. Here, the Holocaust, the tragedy of Babyn Yar, and the contemporary experience of violence emerge not merely as historical events, but primarily as a shared existential challenge to humanity in a world where life has become fragile. Through the artist’s practice—his reflections on family history and the meaning of life—the project seeks to answer: how does one find meaning in a shattered world?

The exhibition features over 200 paintings and graphic works by Matvei Vaisberg, created over the last three decades. During this period, key themes have consistently unfolded in his practice, notably in series and cycles such as "Strangers' Houses," "The Weak Anthropic Principle," "Bruegel’s City," "Maidan," "Road Diary," and "The Thin Red Line." These works serve as a focused artistic contemplation of complex and painful questions regarding collective memory, trauma, contemporary challenges, and the ontological experience of being human. Vaisberg’s central work, "Seven Days," acts as a visual metaphor for the search for meaning—a movement from darkness to light, from chaos to structure, and from loss to memory.

The exhibition "In Search of Lost Meaning: Matvei Vaisberg" unites the personal and the universal, the past and the present, pain and hope—creating a space for reflection on how a person preserves dignity and finds light even in the darkest of times.