Kunstverein Hannover

Kunstverein Hannover (est. 1832) presents the first retrospective of artist Zhanna Kadyrova (born 1981 in Brovary, Ukraine). The solo exhibition Daily Bread includes historical as well as new works, all of which were created in Ukraine.

Kadyrova, who has been working locally and internationally for twenty years, understands artistic work as an activity rooted in resilience. She travels at short intervals between exhibition venues worldwide and her hometown Kyiv, working as an artistic ambassador and messenger. In her luggage she carries not only materials and artworks, but also experiences, traumas, and the effects of living and working under siege. Confronted with the omnipresence of war in her home country, the artist finds a practice of resistance through structure and routine—art making as daily bread. Kadyrova, like many of her colleagues and friends, continues to work, through exhaustion and even the mortal danger she regularly confronts, full of drive and determined focus.

Kunstverein Hannover’s solo presentation of Kadyrova’s practice spans two decades of her work, with a special focus on artistic production in the war phases of 2014 and 2022 until today. For example, the new work Refugees (2022–23) is concerned with preserving and relocating traces of what remains in the wake of the devastation caused by Russian strikes that deliberately target places of community gathering and civilian infrastructure. It is shown alongside other new works that tie in with ongoing series, such as Data Extraction (2013–), Shots (2014–), and Harmless War (2022–), shedding light on a number of long-standing concerns of the artist.

The exhibition is organized in cooperation with and with support from the PinchukArtCentre and is scheduled to be on view in a different form in the summer at the institution’s premises in Kyiv. Not only since the beginning of the war, PinchukArtCentre is the leading institution to support, promote, and represent Ukrainian contemporary art and artists inside as well as outside of Ukraine.

In collaboration with the Foundation Life & Environment | Heinrich Böll Foundation Lower Saxony, the Network Remembrance and Future in the Hannover region, and the ZeitZentrum Zivilcourage of the state capital Hannover, two discursive events from the series “Ukraine and the Russian War of Aggression” take place in February and March that contextualize the works on view, provide background information on the current situation in Ukraine, and facilitate a broader discussion about the role of art and civil society in conditions of aggression and repression.

Kadyrova also wants to let the voices of her fellow activists, artists, and community members be heard. This will be made possible by conversations with artists and filmmakers Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk, who are currently working near Mykolaiv, and artist and writer Yevgenia Belorusets, whose work is currently on view in an exhibition in the German Bundestag.