Maria Prymachenko: Beyond Folk Art

The exhibition “A Tiger Came into the Garden” by Maria Prymachenko (1909-1997), an icon of Ukrainian culture whose work is a significant part of Ukrainian heritage, is currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Kyiv Post interviewed Szymon Maliborski, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, who helped put the exhibition together. The show is open for visitors until June 30, 2024, at the Museum on the Vistula.

Michał Kujawski: The exhibition “A Tiger Came into the Garden” is the largest of Maria Prymachenko’s works in Poland so far. Where did the idea come from and what was involved in putting it together?

Szymon Maliborski: The idea came up after our intervention and solidarity actions with Ukraine. The exhibition of Maria Prymachenko’s works was displayed in the spring of 2022 at the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv. Subsequently, the Lviv museum and the other curator, Eduard Dymshyts, proposed that we could organize it in Warsaw as well.

The Russian invasion made the museum to secure its collection, and Polish institutions extended a helping hand by providing the necessary materials for protective measures. The Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv became an empty building without its collection. Our previous collaboration and contacts with Ukrainian partners enabled us to organize the exhibition in Warsaw. The opening of the exhibition was delayed due to various complications, but luckily it succeeded. War has its own unpredictable logic, and we had to meet many requirements, but in the end, we managed to bring the artist’s works to Warsaw and present them to our visitors.

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MK: Maria Prymachenko survived the collectivization of agriculture and the Holodomor, Stalin’s purges of the 1930s, World War II – during which her brother was killed, and her partner and father of her child went missing – and the Chornobyl disaster. In 2022, some of her works were destroyed in a fire caused by a Russian bomb falling on the Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum. Her grandson, Petro, who is also an artist, participated in the Revolution of Dignity and is actively involved in the defense of Ukraine against Russia’s full-scale war. Is this exhibition, as well as the artist’s biography, an embodiment of Ukraine’s recent history?

SM: The language we use to talk about Maria Prymachenko’s art allows us to see, as if through a lens, all the dramas that have affected Ukrainian culture and society throughout the 20th century. This is art that was created despite the existential conditions in which the artist lived and worked. Her art balances between the convention of folk art, which portrays the surrounding world optimistically and pleasantly, and a certain freedom that allows it to address these Ukrainian experiences of the 20th century.

Prymachenko, through her art, creates a counter-narrative to Russian, and back then Soviet myths such as the conquest of nature – Prymachenko does not emphasize conquest but rather the coexistence of humans and nature. Another example is the portrayal of the atom as something that brings peace: Prymachenko’s works curse atomic war and disasters. From the perspective of Russian propaganda, Ukraine was a country of happy peasants, whereas the artist presents the Holodomor and the effects of the collectivization of agriculture. Maria Prymachenko’s art is an experience of the socio-political context.

MK: So, what exactly is this “Tiger that came into the Garden,” referring to the title of the exhibition?

SM: The tiger that entered Prymachenko’s garden is inspired by a specific work. It is presented on the poster and various visual materials promoting the exhibition. This work serves as a key to interpreting Prymachenko’s art in a broader context. In this painting we see a garden, an orchard which is a small Arcadia inspired by the places the artist knew from the village of Bolotnia, her home place. It is a space of happiness into which a wild beast enters. That’s a place where all that is domesticated, known and friendly meet with the unusual, wild and surreal. It’s a fundamental contrast that we see in the artist’s works. We also see the magic of abundance in the form of many apples on the apple trees – a kind of admiration for nature, which when combined with human labor, can give birth and re-birth. This is a motive that appears in Prymachenko’s art very often. There is also a contemporary interpretation – the tiger is a wild beast that has stumbled into what seemed like a safe world and disturbed it. It is a threat. It is untamed in this domesticated world. Something beyond the order has intruded into this harmonious world.

MK: Can the folk and rustic motives, harmony, the anti-war and peaceful themes in Prymachenko’s works be considered a depiction of the world through a woman’s eyes, do they differ from a male perspective?

SM: Definitely the gender perspective is addressed in Prymachenko’s art. Often within the themes such as loss, the military and war-trauma, we see a set of cultural codes like the commemoration of fallen soldiers, which is evident in Prymachenko’s work. On the other hand, we can see the compositions that have a completely different meaning – they show the daily struggles of women: bustling about, caregiving, nurturing and the work that allows the world to go round. Her perspective not only heroizes warriors but also appreciates the experience of everyday life and daily labor.

A woman’s perspective also lets her speak of love differently – her compositions are inspired by folk traditions and nature, depicting birds searching for their soulmates. This is a very classic and simple convention for expressing the search for love. We can see this in her work dedicated to the Chornobyl disaster, where a jackdaw flies and searches for her husband but cannot find him. His body has dispersed, dematerialized. He is gone. Prymachenko tells a story about herself, about her own experiences of loss.

MK: Regarding the peaceful tone of the artist’s works. All these portrayed catastrophes seem to be something unavoidable for many generations of Ukrainians, part of a common memory and identity. Can we see a certain form of defiance against a fate and struggle over which one has no control? Or, as you mentioned, is it a coexistence of nature and humanity, a hope for rebuilding Ukraine and restoring that harmony and peace?

SM: Speaking with people directly affected by this war led me to conclude that Prymachenko’s art reveals a kind of resilience. It is a resistance and strength that provide the ability to survive under difficult conditions. It’s significantly important on a symbolic level. On the other hand, Prymachenko’s visions of the world are not realistic – they are neither reports nor documents. Prymachenko shows certain rules on which this world is built. It’s a folk magic that enchants reality but also guides it back onto the right path. Prymachenko’s art shows us that the world is different from one filled with pain and struggle is possible.

MK: What does the recent cooperation between Polish and Ukrainian cultural institutions look like – also in terms of protecting Ukrainian heritage?

SM: It’s no coincidence that this exhibition is being displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Our institution has been working with curators and artists from Ukraine for years. In 2018 we displayed the Warsaw Kyiv Link initiative which was co-curated by the Visual Culture Research Center in Kyiv, and it was a part of the Warsaw Under Construction festival.

We are also to display a sculpture by Nikita Kadan, which will be a part of our exhibition at the Bródno Sculpture Park in Warsaw. In 2025 we intend to hold the Kyiv Biennale Festival at our new location in Warsaw. Due to the ongoing war, it cannot take place in Kyiv, but it will largely concern what’s happening in Ukraine.

Also, as part of its activities, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw takes a journey through the history of art. For example, we displayed the exhibition “Henryk Streng/Marek Włodarski,” which focused on a Polish-Jewish artist living in Lviv. Our cooperation concerns contemporary artistic life, but also serves as a starting point for researching historical processes. Protecting Ukraine’s heritage is a complex issue. Not everything valuable can be taken out of Ukraine. Maria Prymachenko’s works will return to Ukraine after the exhibition ends. What needs to be done is to provide support to ensure that all these works are safe in their own country. And this is what we do.