{"id":300360,"date":"2025-07-29T05:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T05:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/300360\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T05:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T05:13:09","slug":"youll-never-save-the-world-with-art-but-it-will-help-you-survive-artist-calls-on-ukraine-to-promote-its-culture-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/300360\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You\u2019ll never save the world with art, but it will help you survive\u2019: artist calls on Ukraine to promote its culture | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlike younger men, who must stay in Ukraine<\/a> in case they are mobilised into the army, Pavlo Makov, 66, could leave the country if he wanted.<\/p>\n

Instead, the artist, one of Ukraine\u2019s most senior and respected cultural figures, is living in Kharkiv, his hometown.<\/p>\n

Situated about 18 miles from the Russian border, Ukraine\u2019s second city suffers brutal missile attacks night after night \u2013 only to spring to life in the daytime, when parks, cafes and restaurants fill up with those brave or stubborn enough to cling on to life here.<\/p>\n

Kharkiv is a city where cultural activity takes place on ground floors or \u2013 even better \u2013 underground<\/a>, in basement bars, theatres and bookshops.<\/p>\n

Makov and his wife are among those who take their chances. The nearest Metro station, which would offer protection from raids, is 500m away, \u201cand most of the attacks on Kharkiv are so fast that as soon as you hear the sound of the alarm the bombs have already fallen\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pavlo Makov at his new art studio in Kharkiv. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

And so, they put in ear plugs and lay a bet with death that they will survive the night.<\/p>\n

He and his family escaped Kharkiv and lived for a time in Italy at the beginning of the war in 2022. But, like many Ukrainians, he found living away from home more stressful than being present, despite the bombs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could have stayed in Italy but realised I was losing my senses. After six months you lose the ability to understand what you are doing there. When we came back I immediately I thought: \u2018OK, I\u2019m in my place.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Makov\u2019s drawing of a battered urban weed that grows in the cracks in the pavement. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Makov has recently renovated a new studio in the city. It is on the ground floor: less vulnerable to air attack than his old, fourth-floor place. Its windows are small for an artist\u2019s studio \u2013 but practical for a city where glass gets blown out of buildings every day.<\/p>\n

On an easel is a large, bold new drawing in vivid shades of emerald and orange \u2013 a departure for Makov who, for years, has worked mostly in highly intricate monochrome prints and graphite pencil.<\/p>\n

It is a drawing of a somewhat battered urban weed that grows in the cracks in the pavement. \u201cIt\u2019s exactly how I feel myself now: a bit ruined but still alive,\u201d Makov said.<\/p>\n

The weed is a kind of plantain<\/a>, different species of which grow across the world. In Ukraine, this humble plant is often applied to bruises or scrapes as a folk remedy. Its name, podorozhnyk, literally translates as \u201cby the road\u201d \u2013 a state of being for the many Ukrainians who are dealing with being displaced, or the threat of being made homeless by a shifting frontline or falling bombs.<\/p>\n

A drawing in the artist\u2019s usual intricate, monochrome style. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have this feeling that we are living from suitcases,\u201d Makov said. His rucksack always stands by the door, packed with his vital documents and ready for a swift departure.<\/p>\n

The image of this plant, and its metaphorical power, was a way of tackling the overwhelming subject of war indirectly, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe language of war is so strong, so powerful. It is so enormous that none of us can compete with its power,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the same time, art exists. It has always existed. They were using it in caves to explain the world, to find a connection with the world. You\u2019ll never save the world with it \u2013 but it will help you survive your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Makov working in his studio. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

When the invasion began on 24 February 2022, Makov, like other artists in the city, took refuge in Kharkiv\u2019s contemporary art gallery, the Yermilov Centre, which is in the concrete basement of a university building.<\/p>\n

He was due to represent his country at the Venice Biennale \u2013 the art world\u2019s most prestigious regular international gathering, which opened in April of that year. But sheltering from the bombings, he abandoned all thoughts of making it to Italy \u2013 until one of the project\u2019s curators called him and told him she had part of his artwork in her car, she was already in Vienna, and she was determined to show something for her country, come what may.<\/p>\n

The next morning Makov and his family made their escape, racing to their car as a cruise missile hit the nearby headquarters of the SBU security service. One of his tyres got a puncture owing to the broken glass strewing the roads. He had to make an emergency return dash to his mother\u2019s flat, because she had forgotten her false teeth. But the family and their pets made it out. And he did end up representing Ukraine<\/a> at the Venice Biennale.<\/p>\n

A piece of art in the studio. Makov says Ukraine has been changed for ever by the war. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

But it was no thanks to the Ukrainian government, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got two telephone calls from the ministry of culture of Italy, asking whether we needed some help. And no phone call from from the ministry of culture of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like we didn\u2019t exist,\u201d he said. \u201cOK, there was a war. But if you\u2019re the ministry of culture, your war is there, in the world of culture.\u201d The Ukrainian gallery with whom he works, The Naked Room, is still out of pocket because of the event \u201cbecause we got no support from the state\u201d beyond the hiring of the space in which the exhibition was held.<\/p>\n

Compared with Russia, which projects itself internationally via its literature, music, ballet and opera, Ukraine was way behind on promoting itself through culture, he said.<\/p>\n

The artist\u2019s tools. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

There is no museum of contemporary art in the country. \u201cWe have a unique situation, now,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the first time in the history of Ukraine, three generations of artists are alive, not killed, and the art they produced has not been destroyed.\u201d It was evidence of a kind of \u201cprovincialism\u201d, he said, \u201ca kind of disrespect to yourself\u201d, not to have built such an institution in an independent Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy am I interested in Great Britain? Not because it won this war or lost this war, it is because Turner is British and I love Turner. Why do I love Ireland? Because James Joyce is one of my favourite writers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Ukraine we don\u2019t have any kind of vision of how to represent Ukraine as a cultural society. We have writers, we have poets, we have we have all these things that we can export, but nobody\u2019s doing that. All our cultural exporting is based on volunteer movements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukrainian society had been changed for ever by the war, he said Huge population shifts had been caused by internal displacement and by trauma, but also through the great divides opening up between individuals, based on their very different experiences during the war: soldiers living through a hellish trench warfare on the front, compared with those far behind the lines or those based abroad.<\/p>\n

Even so, he said, \u201cWe all have one general idea: we need the end of the war. Better, a victory, but at least some kind of stable peace.\u201d But like many others in Ukraine, he finds it hard to envision, under the current circumstances, how that might be achieved. \u201cNormally a stable peace comes if your enemy is destroyed. And I can\u2019t imagine that we can destroy Russia, somehow. Russia has a lot of fat under the skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis drama has been going on now for over three years. It will soon have been going on for as long as the second world war. And I don\u2019t think that people understand Russians will never stop unless they are stopped. If they\u2019re not stopped, they will never stop.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlike younger men, who must stay in Ukraine in case they are mobilised into the army, Pavlo Makov,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-300360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114934815515751277","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}