Disasters of War

"Disasters of War"
335 Nassau Boulevard, Garden City Park, New York 11040

November 23, 11 am – December 19, 7 pm
Monday – Saturday, 11 am – 7 pm, free admission

Please write to racc.ny@mail.ru or call (347) 662 1456  
The artist is available for interviews

Three years ago Russian American Cultural Center (RACC) presented "Disasters of War in East Ukraine", an exhibition of collages by Dmitry Borshch.  They were first exhibited under Ukrainian title "Лихоліття війни на сході України" in Mariupol at the Kuindzhi Center for Contemporary Art (May 3 – June 8, 2016) and Palace of Culture "Seagull" (October 8 – November 5, 2016), then traveled to the Central City Library in Donetsk for an exhibition under Russian title "Бедствия войны" (January 11 – February 9, 2017).

"When I mentioned to a friend employed by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York that I am preparing a series on the war in East Ukraine, which involves traveling there, he encouraged me and even gave the number of two employees of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.  One of them, a monitor with its Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, provided me with valuable security information as I traveled to Donetsk, Poltava, Kiev, Mariupol, and other places from Dnepropetrovsk, my place of birth.  There in 2015 I began to research 'Disasters' through interviews with 'переселенцы', persons resettled from ATO, the zone of Ukrainian government’s 'anti-terrorist operation'", Borshch explained then, adding "I wanted the series, whose title obviously refers to Goya’s 'Los desastres de la Guerra', to be first exhibited in cities afflicted by the war."  

He has now broadened that series to include "First Caliph speaks at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri", "Wagering cigarettes on killing the unborn by shooting into pregnant women's stomachs. Aleppo, 2014", "Father stones daughter. Hama, 2014", "Yazidi Slave Auction. Mosul, 2014", "Kasasbeh Burns!", "America kills Emwazi. Raqqa, 2015", "Massacre in the Amphitheater. Palmyra, 2015", "ISIL crucifies!", "Mosul tomb of Prophet Jonah sledgehammered!", "15 killed at a Sunni funeral in Adhamiyah (north Baghdad). September 2013", "'Cannibal Rebel', also called 'Abu Sakkar bites into the heart and liver of a Syrian government soldier. May 2013'", "Najibullah: The Last Victim of Perestroika?", "Bush-Maliki News Conference. Baghdad, December 2008", "Toppling of Saddam. Firdos Square, Baghdad, 2003", "Praljak's Poison", "Chechnya aflame", "Still Life with Fetus and Lemon Peel: Dedicated to All the Aborted Innocents", "Embarkation for the Isle of Lesbos (after Watteau)" which is about refugees embarking on a dinghy to reach the Greek island of Lesbos, and some other works like "The Battle of Eurasia and Khazaria".

This exhibition is supported by grants from Yalos Foundation (Yalta), Gennady Ostapov Foundation (Kyiv), and material support from Materials for the Arts (Long Island City).  It will happen next month at RACC's new satellite space in Garden City Park, New York.

For more than 10 years Dmitry Borshch has collaborated with Russian American Cultural Center.  It was founded in 1998 by Dr. Regina Khidekel and earned its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in 1999.  RACC aims to provide permanent cultural representation to more than 700,000 Russian-speaking residents of New York.  The center has adopted and broadened the strategy of organizations like No Longer Empty, http://www.nolongerempty.org/ which invigorate neighborhoods by mounting exhibitions in their unutilized or temporarily underutilized spaces.  Visitors coalesce around a space where art may have never been exhibited before.

The artist was born in Dnipropetrovsk, studied in Moscow, today lives in New York, Dnipro, and Ramat Gan.  His works have been exhibited at Russian American Cultural Center (New York), HIAS (New York), Consulate General of the Russian Federation (New York), Lydia Schukina Institute of Psychology (Moscow), Contemporary Art Centers (Voronezh, Almaty), Museums of Contemporary Art (Poltava, Lviv).  More exhibitions can be found in the Brooklyn Arts Council registry: http://archive.is/ClMDa

About the image:

Untitled from "Disasters of War in East Ukraine" series, 2015, ink on paper and collage, 15 x 14 inches