The exhibition of posters by Bohdan Davydyuk illustrates the theme of the Shot Revival and introduces us to the magazine “Culture”. The artist highlights the phenomenon of Ukrainian culture, which was destroyed by the Soviets 100 years ago. The exhibition consists of two parts: 12 posters by Bogdana and slides from a magazine from the middle of the twentieth century.
In 1959, an anthology of Ukrainian literature of 20-30 years “Shot Revival” was published in Paris, published at the expense and efforts of the Literary Institute and, in particular, Jerzy Giedroyc.
An extraordinary event. How did this important work come about, how, in fact, did its compiler Yuri Lavrinenko, who lived in New York at the time, “find”, how did it all start and how did the first copies of the anthology reach the Ukrainian reader? The beginning was the Parisian “Culture” and its leader Jerzy Giedroyc – a special example of a strong voice of emigration, in this case Polish. Literary and political magazine was published from 1947 to 2000. It ceased to exist in 2000 after the death of the editor.
Polish-Ukrainian topics were present in the columns, actively supported and promoted. In 1952, Lobodovsky’s first article on Ukrainian issues appeared. There are figures of Yuri Shevelyov, Bohdan Osadchuk, Yuri Lavrinenko. Living in the United States and Germany, they wrote about the cultural context and the issues in which they were or on the basis of which things were critically perceived in the socialist countries.
It is important for me to say about the liveliness of Ukrainians’ communication around “Culture”, their common “burning”, phrases that are sometimes taken out of context, but which show that they are real people and a part of their lives, not something formal.
Today, ignoring Ukrainian culture and the memory of destroyed culture is relevant and present in the information war against rashism. The topic of the Shot Revival sounds present again, especially because of the thoughts about Kharkiv and the shelling of the Slovo House.
Project is in progress, these posters were originally collected in 2019 for the translation festival “Translatorium”, because the dialogue with the text and narrative was of paramount importance to me.
Bohdana Davydyuk (Lviv) – artist, poster artist. Works with posters, collages, scans. Illustrates books. Creates murals, is engaged in a mosaic.