"HELP ME ORGANIZE A SHOW TO MAKE THE MUSCOVITES JEALOUS," DAVYD BURLIUK WROTE TO UKRAINE. IT FINALLY HAPPENED

An art show was organized, albeit over thirty years after this prominent Ukrainian artist, original man of letters, and theoretician of art wrote this message to his fellow countrymen.

Davyd Burliuk died long ago in immigration, and the “Muscovites,” that is, Russia, as usual went on surpassing their dreamy and clumsy southern neighbor, organizing a grand retrospective exhibit in St. Petersburg several years ago, commemorating Burliuk as one of the founders of Russian futurism.

Now we have an exposition at the Ukrainian Art Museum. It is considerably smaller, although Dmytro Horbachov, a noted expert on the Ukrainian avant-garde, thinks that it has “several fundamental works.” In any case, it is an undeniable feather in the museum’s cap and a major event in Kyiv’s art season. And the man cut too extraordinary a figure to pass unnoticed. After decades of forced oblivion and artificial isolation his pictures, excellent literary studies (his colorful sketches on Japan were published by the journal Vsesvit last year), and ideas are brought back to Ukraine’s literary domain. Formally opposed to the realistic tradition, Burliuk was known for being extraordinarily tolerant and peace-loving. Above all, he was no dogmatist in art and in life he was an energetic cheerful man, as evidenced by his works and the numerous legends about this citizen of the world who would not give up his Ukrainian accent to his dying day and always dreamed of returning to his homeland. Well, finally he did...

Photo by Volodymyr Rasner, The Day:
Davyd Burliuk’s artworks have been displayed in Russia, Japan, America, and in Munich, recalls German Ambassador to Ukraine Eberhard Haiken