Fragments of a reality that once was

The Ludwig Forum for International Art houses some 1,800 works from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, collected by Irene and Peter Ludwig between 1979 and 1996. The exhibition ‘Fragments of a reality that once was’ marks the beginning of a re-examination and repositioning of this collection, with a focus on artworks linked to Ukraine.

The exhibition explores vague and imprecise categorisations and contextual narratives, aiming to do justice to the diversity and complexity of a region recently ravaged by tensions and violence. Works from the 1970s and 1980s, such as Family in Donbas (1970) by Arkadiy Petrov and Gurzuf (1972) by Yuriy Lutkevych, show their emancipating potential against the backdrop of the doctrine of Socialist Realism.

In addition, the exhibition explores the legacy of the Russian avant-garde, with paintings by Oleksandr Tyshler and major works by Leonid Voytsekhov. The eight-part screenprint series Games (1983) by Eduard Gorokhovsky and the assemblage Nature and Imagination (1990) by Larisa Rezun-Zvezdochetova offer a critical look at traditional role models.

The exhibition also highlights Odessa's unofficial art scene in the 1980s, with works by Ilya Kabakov, among others. The video work Odessa. Fragment 205 (2015) by Yuri Leiderman and Andrey Silvetrov deals with Odessa's history and Ukrainian identity.

The exhibition shows the challenge of always looking back at ‘Fragments of a reality that once was’, where interstices and dissonances emerge rather than clear categories. The research project brings to light works that have hardly been studied and rarely shown, and strives for an alternative terminology and a new historical framing that does justice to the diversity of cultural regions within the former USSR and other former Eastern Bloc countries.