Russia-Ukraine war

On the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, The Art Newspaper looks at the human and cultural costs of the conflict, the art world’s efforts to support displaced institutions and individuals, and how Ukraine’s built and artistic heritage has been used to tell the opposing narratives of war.

Kyiv Biennial 2023: a cross-European event put together ‘against all odds’

Plus, a project exploring the sounds of migration and Jem Perucchini’s Art on the Underground commission

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Kyiv Biennial's main exhibition in Vienna brings together the fragments of conflict

The show—the centrepiece of an event being hosted in several cities across Europe—features work addressing the Russia-Ukraine war as well as examples of authoritarian rule and political subjugation from further afield

Artist and Pussy Riot member describes how he joined Ukrainian armed forces in fight against Russia

Pyotr Verzilov was formerly the publisher of Mediazona, a human rights news site founded by Pussy Riot members Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina

Artist recreates historical war painting using a crowd of Ukrainian soldiers

Emeric Lhuisset presents a contemporary version of a 19th-century work by Ilya Repin that frames it in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Cosmoscow, once Russia’s premier international art fair, opens in building reportedly struck by drone last month

Only one of over 75 participating galleries this year is from abroad—but Russian dealers remain determined to continue business

Russia’s boycotted Hermitage Museum inks culture deal with Iranian research institute

Cooperation agreement follows Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy strategy to forge closer ties with Iran

Unesco adds sites in Kyiv and Lviv to list of world heritage in danger

Amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s Saint Sophia Cathedral, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the historic centre of Lviv join Odesa on Unesco’s endangered list

Heritage destruction brings Putin one step closer to prosecution, according to landmark report

Blue Shield workers have been able to access and gather evidence in destroyed cultural buildings and heritage sites in Ukraine. What have they found?

Unesco beefs up protection for 20 cultural heritage sites in Ukraine

Damaging any of the sites inscribed in the agency's new list qualifies as a ‘serious violation’ to the 1954 Hague Convention

Crimean museum director sanctioned by EU and Switzerland

Andrei Vitalievich Maglin is holding thousands of works from the Ukrainian city of Kherson

Canada imposes sanctions on director of Russia’s State Hermitage Museum

Canada is the first country other than Ukraine to sanction Mikhail Piotrovsky for his support of Russia’s invasion

State Tretyakov Gallery employee killed on frontline

Vladislav Polenov first made the news after he was drafted in the partial mobilisation launched by President Vladimir Putin last September

'Cancelled' St Petersburg show honouring Timur Novikov finally opens—with censorship

Artists accuse the Russian Museum—which blames technical issues for the delay—of covering up parts of their works

Historic Kherson cathedral struck by Russian shelling

Landmark site was the burial place of Prince Grigory Potemkin, whose bones were removed by Russian occupying forces last year

Kyiv Biennial 2023 to travel across Europe with focus on 'war and displacement'

This year's exhibition will first open in the capital and two other Ukrainian cities

Russian attacks on Odesa damage Orthodox cathedral

The bombing of several buildings including in the historic city centre—a World Heritage Site—has been strongly condemned by Unesco

Ukraine's historic sites under threat from dam burst

A new report confirms flooding adjacent to the house museum of the self-trained Ukrainian artist Polina Rayko in Oleshky

Riga biennial cancelled after outcry over organisers' Russian links

The third Riboca had already been delayed twice because of the war in Ukraine

Exhibitionsinterview

Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova on bringing her punk protest art and a prison cell to New Mexico

One of the Russian dissident collective’s co-founders, Tolokonnikova is showing Pussy Riot’s work and her own at Container, an art space in Santa Fe

Hermitage Amsterdam gets new name and three new museum partners

The museum, which broke ties with the St Petersburg museum after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, will now be known as H’art

Russia's 'Trinity' icon to stay at Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral for another month

Andrei Rublev’s 15th-century work, which was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church last month, will also no longer be restored at the State Tretyakov Gallery

Mediareview

Artists who stayed in Ukraine navigate cultural war and actual warfare in new documentary

“Rule of Two Walls”, showing at the Tribeca Film Festival, follows artists in Ukraine after the launch of Russia’s invasion

Devastating dam collapse in Ukraine has apparently flooded house museum of late artist Polina Rayko

The self-taught painter's image of a dove has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance following Russia's 2022 invasion

Fragile Trinity icon installed at Moscow cathedral in time for Pentecost

President Putin ordered the transfer of the medieval masterpiece from the State Tretyakov Gallery to the Russian Orthodox Church despite protests from restorers

Russian authorities confirm that famous 'Trinity' icon will be transferred to church despite protests from restorers and art historians

The announcement that President Putin will return Andrei Rublev’s masterpiece has sparked criticism from experts due to its fragile condition

A pioneering Ukrainian American modernist’s wartime imagery gains new relevance

Janet Sobel has gained belated recognition for developing drip painting before Jackson Pollock, but a new exhibition at the Ukrainian Museum in New York focuses on her work during the Second World War

Putin now orders return of Russia's most precious icon to the church

Following the restitution of the silver Nevsky sarcophagus last week, the handover of Andrei Rublev's 15th-century Trinity has sparked concerns among conservators

Fire damages Russian cultural centre in Cyprus

Moscow officials describe that blaze as a "terrorist attack"

Leaderscomment

Now is the time to honour not censor Russia’s dissident artists

The director of the Zimmerli Art Museum, which is home to the world's foremost collection of Soviet nonconformist art, says recent calls to censor all Russian art in light of the war in Ukraine oversimplify the issue

Ukrainian artists reflect on Russia’s war at Expo Chicago

Kyiv-based Voloshyn Gallery is showing works by two emerging Ukrainian artists on its stand at Expo Chicago