Ukrainian art still colonized in Western museums

Author
Patrick Le Tréhondat
Date
December 18, 2022

On the Ukrainian Art History Twitter, an American researcher shared a strange discovery yesterday

"Yesterday was my last day as a researcher at the Zimmerli Art Museum, New Jersey. I researched the Chernobyl disaster in art there for almost four months. I discovered that 77 Ukrainian artists are listed as Russians in the database. I analyzed and checked the information, archives on more than 900 artists from the Russian art collection and the nonconformist Soviet collection. I did not find any information on 10% of the artists, but 80 of them were born in countries other than Russia. Another problem is spelling. Many Ukrainian artists are presented in the wrong "Russian" spelling. Like "Nikolai", which should be spelled " Mykola" or "Aleksander", "Oleksandr", "Mykhailo" and "Mikhail", "Olena" and not "Elena", etc.

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I also did some research at the Smithsonian [Institute for Scientific Research] where 39 Ukrainian artists are listed as Russian, and at MoMA The Museum of Modern Art, where 41 Ukrainian artists are listed as Russian. »

A few days later Ukrainian Art History discovered a new example of russification of Ukrainian artists (see the panels in pictures):

"Dear Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,

Repin and Kuindzi are Ukrainian artists, they were born in Ukraine and worked there. Please make these corrections. These are horrible mistakes. »

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