Tatiana Mironova and Anna Avetova stand at the forefront of Ukraine’s contemporary art renaissance. Mironova, director of Kyiv Municipal Gallery Lavra and founder of several major cultural initiatives, has spent years building institutions that support Ukrainian artists and preserve cultural life amid extraordinary upheaval. Avetova, a curator and cultural strategist with international experience spanning Europe, the Middle East, and North America, has worked to connect Ukrainian art with global audiences and to help shape a new generation of cultural professionals.

In this conversation, they discuss the evolution of Ukraine’s contemporary art scene, the enduring influence of Soviet artistic traditions, the challenges of cultivating creative independence after decades of political and cultural control, and the role that galleries, fairs, and museums play in safeguarding national identity during wartime. They also reflect on generational shifts, the emergence of new artistic voices, and their efforts to build cultural institutions capable of sustaining Ukraine’s artistic future.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Art Kyiv has become one of the country’s most important contemporary art events. Looking at this year’s edition, which galleries, artists, or collaborations are you particularly excited about, and what makes them significant for Ukraine’s evolving art scene?

Tatiana Mironova: There are many highlights. Anna probably knows the gallery side better because she works directly with the selection process.

Anna Avetova: I am proud of this year’s selection. We have Dymchuk Gallery, which we especially wanted because it is a strong, established gallery from Kyiv. We also have The Naked Room. They are younger but extremely interesting, with very strong artists. They have participated in the Venice Biennale and operate between institutional and contemporary art spaces. They are one of the first Ukrainian galleries to work consistently at an international level.

We also have Portal 11, which is another very good gallery. Some of these galleries participated in earlier Art Market editions before I joined the project, but last year, they did not participate for various reasons. This year, we finally brought them in, and we are very proud of that.

We also have a strong selection of artists. For example, Stepan Ryabchenko was one of our central artists in the previous edition. Each edition has a theme or an artist who becomes the face of the event. Last time, it was Stepan’s work- flowers, gardens, that kind of imagery.

Moreover, now we are featuring Volodymyr Manzhos (Waone Interesni Kazki). He is internationally known as a street artist, but now he also works in painting, sculpture, graphics, and other classical forms. There is a waiting list to purchase his work.

His artwork became the visual centrepiece of the fair. If you come here, it is the first thing you will see. The image we use is actually a print because the original painting is unavailable. He has collectors waiting years for his work. We know one collector who has been waiting since 2021.

All of the fair’s visual branding, our banners, and promotional design use his artwork.

 

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Jacobsen: Beyond the established names, are there emerging artists, students, or creative initiatives that you believe represent the future of Ukrainian contemporary art? What gives you confidence in this new generation?

Avetova: Tatiana’s galleries always work with established artists, and she consistently maintains a high level of quality. Her artists also create new works specifically for these exhibitions.

For example, we now have Viktor Sydorenko. He is a very important and influential artist. He is also the president of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, a position effectively a government role. He is an artist, an academic, and a major cultural figure. He created a new artwork for this exhibition and placed it on the wall while the paint was still wet. That was impressive.

We also have several booths connected to students and academies. Some are government academies, while others are private schools for photographers, artists, and similar fields. That is also very interesting because many participants are adults, not just traditional students, and many of them began studying art during the war.

It is interesting to watch them develop. They can learn how the art world works by selling, exhibiting, speaking with visitors, and hearing people’s reactions. It becomes a practical education for them.

Many of them also volunteer. They help us with the booths and event organization. Then they tell us, “We are becoming more experienced. This is so interesting.”

Mironova: I would also like to say a few words about my main idea for this space.

Historically, Kyiv Municipal Gallery Lavra began as a space for street art before I arrived. My main idea now is to create a shared space for art, architecture, and design. For me, it is important to create a contemporary art museum here.

In our building, we discovered one hall that had been closed for years. We reopened it and created a small museum space there. We call it the “New Museum.”

My biggest idea and greatest wish is to create a living center of art where all these disciplines coexist. I also want it to include museum-quality contemporary art.

Step by step, we are building exactly that. Of course, it is difficult during the war because everything changes every day. We have no financial support other than utilities, such as electricity, which are paid for by the city. Anna and I have to find resources for everything else ourselves.

We can build this large art center, and the art fair is one important part of that larger vision.

Jacobsen: Ukraine’s artistic culture has been shaped by imperial, Soviet, and post-independence experiences. How does contemporary Ukrainian art differ from these earlier periods, and what challenges remain in defining a distinctly Ukrainian artistic identity on the international stage?

Mironova: During the Soviet Union, art was dominated by socialist realism. Everyone was expected to create portraits of Lenin, soldiers, and similar ideological subjects. Only underground artists created the work they truly wanted to make.

However, now we are open-minded. Yes, you can say that people are now creating what they want. They paint what they want to paint. However, of course, the background of socialist realism still strongly influences the younger generation, as many teachers come from that earlier period.

I think Anna can also speak to this, since she created an online school for young artists. Many students told her that when they first started, they all painted people because their teachers did.

They had no possibility and often no money to travel abroad, experience different artistic traditions, or study elsewhere. This old school deeply influenced them. It takes a long time to change that culture here, and that is one reason Ukrainian art is still developing its own distinct position.

It is difficult for Ukrainian art, as an independent category, to establish itself clearly within the European and global art scene.

This historical past did not give us the opportunity for full artistic independence. We still need to define our own concept of Ukrainian art because we were under outside influence for so long.

During the last hundred years, and especially during the period when contemporary art was developing internationally, we still had communism and Soviet art. Contemporary art in Ukraine, therefore, has a much shorter history.

The problem is that we have always had talented and creative artists, both in the past and now, but the Soviet system shaped them. There were essentially two paths. One path was to go through the academy or the official artists’ unions and work within the narratives the state demanded.

The state would commission work, for example, portraits of Stalin, Lenin, or Brezhnev. Artists were paid for these works, given studio space, materials, and financial support. In that sense, many official artists lived comfortably.

The other artists, the ones who rejected this system, created independent work but were marginalized. Some were censored, arrested, or persecuted.

Avetova: After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many artists from that generation did not know what to do because they had never fully developed independent creative practices. They had strong technical drawing skills, but they did not know how to apply them effectively or how to survive economically outside the Soviet system.

They were not involved in that system. Then, my parents’ generation was poor, and we did not have galleries where artists could show their work. The audience was not ready for this level of creativity, so it turned into a total mess. That is why the influence of the Soviet Union is still here.

When we were in school and at university, we studied flowers and other subjects. Where could creative, interesting, contemporary art come from? Even when I first encountered contemporary art, I was maybe nineteen. I came here to this gallery for the first time. I did not know Tatiana yet. I saw artwork by the Kharkiv artist Gamlet, and I remember that exhibition. I still have many photos from it.

I was shocked. I did not understand what it was. I had never seen anything like it because I did not even have books that could explain it to me. So the gap between artists, what we really need, the audience, and everything else is still there. They are like different worlds, and we still cannot put them all together.

When you live and study abroad, you have this from the beginning, from school age. My son and I visited the Beyeler Foundation in Switzerland, and he saw a Basquiat painting. He said, “Mama, I saw this already. I saw him already.” He recognized it was Basquiat, and he was eight. That is the difference.

Now we have a new generation after us. People who were born in the 1990s are, in some ways, a lost generation. We have good artists from that generation, but not as many as we should because they were caught between two worlds.

Now, younger people are coming of age with social media and access to a great deal of information. They are different. They can sell, communicate, and work differently. It is interesting to work with them.

The previous generation is still trying to understand how to do this, but the gap remains. We will have this gap for at least another twenty years. The war, the pandemic, and everything else have made it even larger.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Tatiana and Anna.