“Artifacts of Kilometer Zero”, Khanenko Museum

With more than 25000 artworks, the Khanenko Museum used to host Ukraine’s biggest collection of Fine Arts, ranging from Ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian art, to Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese artifacts, while also being home to artworks from Hieronymus Bosch, Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Antonio Canova, Peter Paul Rubens, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, and many other European artists, but the full-scale invasion drastically changed the collections presented. Thousands of paintings were brought to safety – the museum recalling the losses suffered during World War II. On October 10th, Russia launched missiles on the very heart of Kyiv, aiming for, and missing, the Shevchenko University and the Khanenko museum. One missile fell on a playground, only a few meters away from the museum, and another in the middle of the road. Both blasts blew up hundreds of windows. Albeit plunged in the dark from the wood panels sealing its windows, and empty from its collections, the museum now hosts a series of exhibitions from contemporary artistes inspired by the current events.

These days, the work of artist turned fixer for foreign journalists Evhen Bal is showcased in a vitrine full of objects he found on the frontline (“point zero”, for soldiers), and worked into artifacts reminiscing the artist’s life: “Things that the artist finds in the front-line area or in everyday life become triggers that make him recall scenes from his life. At the same time, they highlight the events that have become our common past (…). We become a single body into which the bullet invades and which continues to live with it”, reads the museum’s presentation board. It continues: “Metaphor transform pain into struggle. In this project, working with found material objects is an attempt to grasp reality and displace the fear of the unknown through knowledge”.

In mixing these artifacts with everyday objects, Evhen Bal recalls to the visitor the presence of war in every aspect of life in Ukraine. The “two octaves of bullets” created within a piece of piano decoration seem to give life to a new music instrument, while a dented aluminium shrapnel planted into a base painted in red looks like a houseplant from hell. Irony is everpresent, such as with a porcelain statue of Russian writer Alexander Pushkin pierced with rusty shrapnels and cathartically called “Suicide of Russian culture”, at the very same time that Ukrainian culture and heritage is being endangered by daily shelling and war crimes committed by the Russian agressor.

“Artifacts of kilometer zero” also reminds that behind scraps of metal and empty shells, human beings once held or made the decision to throw those objects with an aim of destruction. Equally, the non-lethal everyday objects showcased emphasize what is lost in civilian life during the war, especially for people stuck on the frontline: the uncertainty of every moment, the fragility of life, and the daily loss of what used to be normal, seem to be conveyed in the artifacts exhibited. They are a vivid testimony of what war feels like in Ukraine.