This exhibit presents fifteen extraordinary biographies of female artists whose lives and work are intertwined with the modern history of Lviv – war, the Holocaust, mass resettlements and the collapse of national borders. The work of the artists presented is both a record of personal tragedies and a form of protest against injustice and violence. Their works are acts of affirmation of life, despite the destruction wrought by history.
The exhibition, presented at the Main Building of the National Museum in Kraków, has another equally important point of departure: the curator selected the works in full awareness of the absence of a coherent and comprehensive narrative of Lviv’s art history—particularly regarding the interwar period. Following the devastation of World War II, independent narratives emerged in art history focusing on artists from the three main ethnic communities living in Lviv at the time: Polish, Jewish, and Ukrainian. Each of these narratives acknowledges a shared heritage or invokes the image of Lviv as a proverbial national melting pot. Lviv Women seeks to present the interwar artistic community of Lviv as a unified group while simultaneously highlighting the variety of individual artistic attitudes and stylistic approaches within it.
The exhibition is held at the "XX + XXI. Galeria Sztuki Polskiej" gallery, in the "Curator’s Choice" space.
