Description
The Art Of Ukrainian Sixties is the first comprehensive edition to represent various aspects of the unofficial artistic culture of 1960s Ukraine, surveying all key figures of the period.
The core of the book consists of texts on 15 artists who were central figures of nonconformist, or unofficial, art in 1960s Kyiv, Lviv, and Uzhhorod, as well as a separate, extensive overview of the Odesa school. The main text is supplemented by a series of short monographs examining “officially sanctioned” art practices, including graphics, monumental art, and sculpture, which were also spaces for formal experimentation during the era. The book’s historical and methodological overviews, as well as its explorations of literature, academic music, cinematography, and architecture, lay the foundations for a profound critical examination of both official and unofficial art movements of the time.
The extensive visual materials have been provided courtesy of museum collections, private collectors, and the artists’ families. The rigorous selection of works reproduced in the present edition is the result of innumerable consultations with artists, scholars, and museum teams specializing in this influential period in Ukrainian art history.
Twenty-six scholars of different generations, schools, and professional milieus contributed to the book. As such, it represents not only a panorama of Ukrainian unofficial art of the 1960s but also a singular survey of contemporary Ukrainian art scholarship in all its motley polyphonic glory.
