President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska visited a retrospective exhibition of Ukrainian artist of the sixties Alla Horska at the Ukrainian House.
The exhibits include more than a hundred paintings, drawings, and sketches of monumental works from museum and private collections, as well as archival materials covering the creative and public activities of the artist and her inner circle.
Almost all of Horska's monumentalist oeuvre has been lost, as most of her works came under occupation in 2014. The Russian invaders also destroyed the mosaic panel with the bird Boryviter, whose name is the same as the title of the exhibition. The artist created it in 1967 for the "Ukraine" restaurant in Mariupol. First, the panel was damaged by Russian bombing of the city, and later the occupiers destroyed it along with the building.
"Having visited this place, you realize why it is more than an exhibition. Because the dramatic fate of the oeuvre is inseparable from the fate of the author. Alla Horska was not only an artist but also a human rights activist. The Soviet authorities destroyed her works, the artist was summoned for interrogation by the KGB, and she was expelled from the Union of Artists. And so it is not surprising that her contemporaries considered her murder to be a revenge of the Soviet secret services," Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Olena Zelenska shared their thoughts.
The exhibition is open to everyone until April 28.