A sleek East Hampton abode filled with socialites and Aperol spritzes seems irreconcilable with the bloody horror of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But over Labor Day weekend, the elite enclave on New York’s Long Island served as a backdrop for a show and sale of contemporary Ukrainian art to raise funds for Ukraine’s children.
Mriya, New York’s first contemporary Ukrainian art gallery, teamed up with BlueCheck, a humanitarian organisation supported by actor and film-maker Liev Schreiber, to stage the Hamptons Art & Hope Gala on 31 August. It was organised in a few weeks by Mriya’s founder, Artem Yalanskiy, and Scott Baxter, an art collector and purveyor of luxury architectural hardware who opened his home for the event. “I am a supporter of displaced people,” he said.
Baxter’s collection, including works by Andy Warhol and Auguste Rodin and charcoal drawings by his former art teacher, Joseph Piccillo, were interspersed with pieces by the Ukrainian artists Andrii Bludov, Mariko Gelman, Yevhenii Shapovalov, Nina Murashkina, Dasha S. Kandinsky and others, curated by Rukh Arts Hub’s Mariia Manuilenko and Olga Severina.
Unicef reported in May that nearly 2,000 children have been killed since Russian president Vladimir Putin launched his invasion in February 2022. A missile strike hit a Kyiv children’s hospital in July; on 5 September at least three children were killed by a Russian attack on Lviv (the city’s historic centre is a Unesco World Heritage site). Ukrainian authorities have said that around 20,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted by Russia since 2022 and that this is genocide according to the United Nations’ definition.
Julia Haart (left) and Scott Baxter (right) at the Hamptons Art & Hope Gala Photos by Alex Radomskiy
Schreiber promoted the fundraising event on Instagram and said in a written statement: “As Ukraine defends itself against Russia's brutal and multilayered attack, it’s more essential than ever that we celebrate and reinforce Ukrainian culture and character. The best defence against any attempt at genocide is a broad embrace of the humanity and culture at the heart of it. What they are fighting for is simply a right to exist. To raise their children and their children’s children as Ukrainian.”
Schreiber’s maternal grandfather was from Ukraine and his directorial debut, Everything is Illuminated (2005), was based on a novel about a young Jewish American man’s journey to explore his roots in Ukraine. After the invasion, Schreiber partnered with BlueCheck and Ukrainian President Volodymur Zelensky’s United24 charitable fundraising platform. He met with Zelensky in Kyiv in August 2022.
BlueCheck co-founder Murphy Poindexter said that “the Mriya team reached out to us about their goal of doing a fundraiser to spread awareness and raise money for local NGOs supporting children in Ukraine”.
Gala guests circulated with spritzes, prosecco and hors d’oeuvres in hand through Baxter’s California-style home and out to the pool, which was flanked by Ukrainian artists’ paintings. Performances by the Fima Chupakhin Jazz Band and DJ Anastasia Bondarenko provided the soundtrack.
Some items were sold in a silent auction. A percentage of art sale proceeds went to BlueCheck. Gala cocktail tickets were $250; $750 tickets included a curated dinner by Ukrainian chef Dima Martseniuk. Canapés included a Ukrainian specialty: dark bread topped with cured pork fat known as salo and a pickle. Ticket sales raised $22,000, with a total of $31,380 by evening’s end, including art sales. Fundraising will continue via an online auction.
Guests included the food and wine columnist Baroness Sheri De Borchgrave and the real estate mogul and former Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation board member Janna Bullock—who was briefly a Moscow art scene fixture nearly two decades ago when she was married to a local government official. Ukrainian model Alina Baikova, who has appeared in a “Fuck You Putin” shirt at New York Fashion Week and the Cannes Film Festival, wore an outfit featuring Ukraine’s yellow and blue colours. The Ukrainian flag and “Stand With Ukraine” pins were strategically placed on her see-through yellow blouse.
An attendee of the Hamptons Art & Hope Gala looks at the art on view Photo by Dinara Khairova
In a poolside speech, Julia Haart, star of the Netflix series My Unorthodox Life, announced that she had purchased Dasha Kandinsky’s Blossom #6, for $12,000. Haart, who was born in Moscow and brought to the US as a child, described delivering ambulances to the besieged city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. “The fight that is happening in Ukraine today is a battle for freedom, and it is our duty to stand with them,” she said.
Marta Fedoriw, who combats Russia’s child kidnappings as chair of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America’s “Return Ukraine’s Children” programme, told The Art Newspaper that “the abduction of Ukraine’s children and theft of its art are both part of the same campaign to destroy Ukrainian cultural identity”. She and other attendees said that events like the gala are needed to raise awareness and fight donor fatigue.
The only exhibiting artist who could attend was Julia Isabel, who left Ukraine after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and now lives in Connecticut. Her son, who went to visit Ukraine just before Russia invaded, cannot leave because he is of war mobilisation age (18 to 60).
“The war in Ukraine has affected everyone in some way,” Isabel said, standing near her self-portrait, She and Her Shadows (priced at $8,000), which she said illustrates her understanding that there is “no time to die” because there is “a lot to do still”.