“Women at War,” an exhibition that features works by a selection of the leading contemporary women artists working in Ukraine and provides a context for the current war, concludes its travels across the United States by making its last stop at the North Dakota Museum of Art. Individuals interested in viewing the exhibit have until Mar. 30 before “Women at War” leaves the NDMOA.
The exhibit was curated by Monika Fabijanska, an art historian, contemporary art curator, and art appraiser based in New York City.
“Monika had a kind of curatorial residency. She had a completely different show that she was working on, but then, the war broke out,” Anna Sigridur Arnar, the curator of modern and contemporary art at the NDMOA, said. “Iliya Fridman (the director at Fridman Gallery) said to Monika, ‘We have to do something. We have to do a show on Ukrainian art.”
To present some of this Ukrainian art, Fabijanska received these works after they were smuggled across the Ukrainian borders during a familial visit to Poland, and she obtained the rest of her exhibit at the Venice Biennale, a huge bi-annual international show in Venice, Italy.
“As a curator, I have to say I’m a little bit in awe because not only did she do a great job selecting,” Sigridur Arnar said. “But just logistically, to get the work to the U.S., everything had shut down.”
“[Women at War] ended up coming to North Dakota, because I got to know Monika as I was working on a project with a slightly different theme,” Sigridur Arnar said. “She showed me where it was going, and, of course, it was the east and west coast.”
Sigridur Arnar recounts her interactions with Fabijanska as she suggested she take the show across the Midwest.
“[Fabijanska] did not grow up here (U.S.), and I said, ‘You should approach some places in the Midwest because there are huge populations of Ukrainian immigrants,” SIgridur Arnar said. “I told her some ideas for Chicago, Minneapolis, and Manitoba, but I said, ‘I will contact the NDMOA, I wasn’t working there at the time, because I know this a museum that has historically taken on shows that approach difficult themes.”
“Women at War” provides a space for women narrators of history and examines outlooks of war from different genders.
“All works in the show have very strong storytelling. I think it was part of Monika’s curatorial idea to build a narrative of recent Ukrainian history through many small voices and female voices,” Lesia Khomenko, one of the artists featured in “Women at War,” said. “For me, it is very important the wider prospective that shows the past decades and builds context for the recent tragedy.”
Khomenko recalls her creative processes for her art featured in “Women at War.”
“I’m working with acrylic painting in the studio but am doing a lot of research prior to every work. Some ideas appear spontaneously. For example, “Max in the Army” was a very fast decision, but I had a methodology of witnessing the wars for about ten years.” Khomenko said. “For my ongoing works, such as “Untitled Figures,” I’m watching tons of war footage that is generated by soldiers and uploaded on social media.”
This exhibit is underwritten by the University of North Dakota, and this support is supplemented by individual donors. To further interact with “Women at War,” the NDMOA will host Fabijanska who will give a talk about the exhibition followed by discussion and engagement on Feb. 27 between 4 p.m. to 5:30 pm. Also, on Feb. 28, at the Empire Arts Center in Grand Forks, the NDMOA will host a screening of new films produced by artists featured in the “Women at War” exhibit.
Dylan Campbell is a Dakota Student Section Editor. He can be reached at [email protected].
