ALEXANDRA EXTER: The Stage is a World. ОЛЕКСАНДРА ЕКСТЕР: сцена – це світ [prepay]

Prepayment until January 20. Printed: February, 2024.

“Alexandra Exter: The Stage Is a World” is the catalog of the exhibition of the Ukrainian Museum in New York, which opened on September 24 and will continue until January 19, 2025. The exhibition features about 40 of Exter's works — most from American museums, as well as private collections.

Peter Doroshenko, exhibition curator:

"The exposition of one of the most important artists of the beginning of the 20th century, Alexandra Exter (Ukrainian: Oleksandra Ekster), is the first of the Museum's decolonization program to present Ukrainian art in the United States. Alexandra Exter was a key figure in the development of the Ukrainian avant-garde, working alongside such artists as Kazimir Malevich and Volodymyr Tatlin. Her participation in these movements helped shape the course of Ukrainian art in the early 20th century, but her contribution is often overshadowed by her Russian contemporaries. By emphasizing Exter's role in Ukrainian contemporary art, we can challenge the Russian narrative about modernism and demonstrate the variety of artistic innovations that took place in Ukraine at this time.

Alexandra Exter was a Ukrainian artist who played a significant role in the development of modern art in the early 20th century. Her work is often categorized as cubo-futurism, a movement that combined the elements of cubism and futurism to create dynamic and abstract compositions. Exter’s art was influenced by her Ukrainian heritage, as well as her exposure to European modernist movements during her time living in Paris. However, despite her Ukrainian background, Exter’s work has been largely invisible in art history, with little focus on her contributions to Ukrainian art and culture. This exhibition, Alexandra Exter: The Stage Is a World, covers six years of her work in Ukraine before her involvement with the film Aelita and her move to France, and the next six years of her work in Paris.”

Alexandra Exter lived in Kyiv for more than 35 years. There she finished Saint Olga Gymnasium, studied at Kyiv Art Institute, got married to Mykola Exter and lived with her husband and his parents on Himnazychna Street,1 (now Leontovycha Street), where she opened a painting workshop. Vadym Meller, Anatol Petrytsky, Oleksandr Tyshler, Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov, Isaak Rabinovich, and Klyment Redko were among the visitors and students of this workshop who, together with Alexandra Exter, had a huge influence on the artistic life of the city. Oleksandr Bohomazov and Alexandra Exter organized in Kyiv some of the first new art exhibitions in the Russian empire, the famous Kiltse and Lanka.

In Kyiv Alexandra Exter worked with Bronislava Nijinska’s School of Movement and was a co-curator and exposition designer of the folk art exhibition at today’s National Art Museum in 1906. She was also focused on researching and uniting folk art with avant-garde, local artisans with modernists by working with peasant workshops like Natalia Davydova’s in Verbivka and Anastasia Semyhradova’s and Yevhenia Prybylska’s in Skoptsi. As a scenographer, she created hundreds of plays that along with her other works helped her to gain worldwide recognition.

Essays: Ivan Kozlenko, Oksana Semenik, Claire Staebler

Foreword: Peter Doroshenko, Director of the Ukrainian Museum, NY

Design by Maria Norazian, Grafprom