The Ukrainian Museum welcomes visitors to its modern new home (04/17/05)

The Ukrainian Museum welcomes visitors to its modern new home

by Helen Smindak
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

NEW YORK - At 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 3, Ihor and Svitlana Jushchenko of Astoria, Queens, entered the three-story glass and brick Ukrainian Museum building on East Sixth Street, walked up to the ticket counter and purchased two tickets to view an exhibit of work by modernist sculptor Alexander Archipenko. As they turned to enter the lobby, they were met by photographers, reporters and beaming museum officials and trustees.

Mr. and Mrs. Jushchenko were the first paying customers in the sparkling new, elegant home of The Ukrainian Museum, an institution that has been a leading proponent of Ukrainian folk art and culture in the diaspora for almost 30 years.

Though the Jushchenkos (the similarity of their name to that of Ukraine's president was immediately noted) happened to be the first visitors, others soon followed. All were eager to examine the innovative work of a world-renowned Ukrainian artist (a contemporary of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse), and to view the interior spaces of an artistically designed building meant to provide endless opportunities for exhibiting and promoting Ukrainian cultural artifacts.

The museum's public opening came after several days of previews by the press and museum members, and two gala evening receptions attended by a number of dignitaries, including New York State's First Lady Libby Pataki and Ambassador Valeriy Kuchinsky from the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations.

Among other distinguished guests who came to toast the new museum and stroll through pristine galleries to view the exhibit "Alexander Archipenko: Vision and Continuity" - were the artist's widow, Frances Archipenko Gray, president of the Alexander Archipenko Foundation, and New York City Commissioner for Immigratnt Affairs Guillermo Linares, representing Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Of the 65 modernist sculptures and sculpto-paintings on display, the majority are from Ms. Archipenko Gray's private collection and the Alexander Archipenko Foundation.

Others are on loan from such prestigious New York institutions as the Brooklyn Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. There are also works on loan from the Elvehjem Museum of Art in Madison, Wis., the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Ukrainian Museum and Library of Stamford, Conn., the Yale University Art Gallery and private collections.

Organized by guest curator Jaroslaw Leshko to illustrate four dominant Archipenko concepts, the exhibit is shown in four segments "Form and Space"; "Motion and Stasis"; "Construction, Materials, Color"; and "Content into Form."

Dr. Leshko, professor emeritus of art history at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., explained: "This approach allows the visitor to explore vital continuities in Archipenko's art, since each of these rubrics was revisited and reinterpreted in every phase of his career."

One of the 20th century's most innovative and influential artists, Archipenko reassessed the relationship between solid and void, an approach that, Dr. Leshko said, "manifested itself in the exploration of concave/convex forms, and especially in his substitution of a void for a head or a torso - his most important and radical innovation."

Housed in first and second-floor galleries, the exhibit includes many of Archipenko's best-known works, such as "Cleopatra" (1957), which incorporates new processes and materials, in this case wood, bakelite and found objects.

Archipenko (1887-1964) was a pioneer Cubist sculptor whose use of solids and hollows influenced many modern sculptors. He was also one of the first artists to adapt the new technique of collage to sculpture, mixing a wide variety of materials.

Born in Kyiv, where he attended the Kyiv Art Institute until 1905, he established his reputation as a revolutionary innovator in the art world of Paris. He opened an art school in Berlin before moving to the United States in 1923. Based in Bearsville, N.Y. (near Woodstock), he taught in numerous colleges and universities, opened an art school in Los Angeles in 1935, and taught at the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937.

"A giant show"

Press reaction to the exhibit so far has included a very favorable review by Time Out Magazine's Ethan LaCroix, who commented at length on the "swank new 25,000-square-foot space on East Sixth Street" and the "impressive" exhibit.

Mr. LaCroix also praised the installation by East Village-based architects Michael Moore and Yoshiko Sato, commending them for displaying sculptures on different levels (even placing one on a slowly rotating platform), and lighting Archipenko's Plexiglas forms from within.

"The overall effect is that the entire museum resembles not so much a small cultural center, but a giant show you're more likely to find in one of the pricier uptown institutions," he concluded.

Visitors, greeted in the lobby by Archipenko's plaster bust of Taras Shevchenko and a life-size photo of Archipenko at work, were unanimous in their praise of the exhibit and the new building. Members of the Ukrainian community deemed both projects successful undertakings.

One East Villager commented: "This new building is superb, and the museum officials and trustees should be highly commended for choosing such an important artist as Archipenko for the first exhibit."

There was a brisk business in the gift shop as visitors dropped in to pick up a folk art souvenir or purchase a copy of an illustrated, bilingual exhibit catalogue featuring a comprehensive analytical essay authored by Dr. Leshko.

At evening receptions, felicitations were extended by Mrs. Pataki, Ambassador Kuchinsky, Bohdan Kekish, president of the Selfreliance (New York) Federal Credit Union, and Iryna Kurowyckyj, president of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America, the organization that founded the museum in 1976.

The Rev. Bernard Panczuk, pastor of the neighboring St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church, brought greetings from Bishop Basil Losten of the Stamford Diocese. Titus Hewryk, a former president of the board of trustees, served as reception emcee with good-humored wit.

Ms. Archipenko Gray complimented everyone involved with the exhibit on "an excellent job, very tastefully done." She told The Ukrainian Weekly that this was the finest display of Archipenko work she has seen in the U.S.

Museum benefactor Eugene Shklar, who with his wife, Daymel, has donated $2.5 million to the museum's building fund and $1 million to its challenge grant, congratulated museum founders, trustees, staff, and its many benefactors and members "for believing in the mission of this institution and for courage and perseverance in transforming a vision into reality."

Olha Hnateyko, president of the board of trustees, told reception guests that "this new Ukrainian Museum is an achievement of much greater importance and profound implications for the future of the Ukrainian community in the United States than we can imagine."

Exhibition extras

The museum's executive director, Maria Shust, in thanking everyone for their help, was also happy to inform visitors that The Ukrainian Museum is augmenting the Archipenko exhibition with a variety of public programming, including tours, gallery talks, a lecture series, a symposium, and a full range of educational material for teachers, students and young families.

The new $9 million museum, designed by architect George Sawicki of the New York-based architectural firm of Sawicki Tarella Architecture + Design, incorporates climate-controlled gallery spaces, a state-of-the-art storage facility for permanent collections, an auditorium, library, gift shop and cafe, as well as workshops and office spaces.

Blond wood floors (with pale stone flooring in selected locations) and blond wood doors combine with white walls and ceilings to form a perfect foil for artwork in any medium. The use of glass walls at the front entrance and in the lobby expands the spacious look of the museum's interior. Fully handicapped-accessible, the museum boasts a hydraulic oversized elevator serving all floors.

While the museum's extensive collections of Ukrainian folk art, fine art and photographic/documentary archives will serve as major sources for program development, expanded programming is planned that will include exhibitions, an educational agenda and community-oriented cultural events.

With the museum staff currently involved in the transfer of furniture, equipment and permanent collections from their former home on Second Avenue to the new museum on East Sixth Street, only one folk art collection has been put on display. Part of the museum's extensive collection of colorful pysanky is exhibited with Easter breads in glass cases on the museum's lower level.

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The Ukrainian Museum, 222 E. Sixth St., (between Second and Third avenues) is open Wednesday to Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $8; seniors and students, $6; children under 12, free. Museum members enjoy free admission. Annual membership categories range from individual at $40 to sponsors at $750, including senior memberships ($15) and student memberships ($10). For further information, readers may call (212) 228-0110, or visit the museum's website at www.ukrainianmuseum.org.

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