From the ashes of Russia’s war, Ukraine’s most famous sculptor was forced to take a dark artistic turn on the day his country home was destroyed in a Russian attack.
“It happened by chance. It happened when a missile flew into our house or dacha, and the neighbors collected the missile fragments,” Mikhail Leva said through an interpreter. “Then the idea came to me to create a metaphor for those rubbles.”
Two years after the invasion, the Odesan native continues to turn more than two tons of war debris – spiked Kalashnikov shells, bullets and crumpled captured shells – into art that expresses his country’s suffering. I never stopped making changes. Often monumental sculptures serve as challenging and emotional reminders of art’s important role in representing the inexpressible.
President Trump said nearly a year ago that he could end the war in Ukraine, but has yet to provide specifics.
The wrought iron pieces, some with delicate wings, others religious and ironic, are part of the U.S. effort to reengage with UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency based in Paris. , on display at the prestigious Hôtel de Talleyrand at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. , returned last year after a hiatus of several years. It is also an effort to highlight important voices in a war that has claimed lives on an unimaginable scale.
“Protracted wars can lead to complacency, but art has the power to transcend, to make us pause and remind us that this is a personal matter,” said Jean, Deputy U.S. Mission to UNESCO.・Mr. Maness said. “It has the power to make you look at it again and see it with fresh eyes.”
Desperate to turn inexplicable destruction into something meaningful, Reva created 2023’s Flower of Death using fragments from a real-life rocket attack on her home.
“As an artist, when I learned about the attack on the dacha, it was very difficult to understand how I could express that pain in my artistic method. That was a big problem,” he said.
Leva was famous long before his art took a dark turn. His famous eccentric sculptures have been seen by millions of people in prominent squares and beaches in places like Odessa and Kiev. But the relentless conflict forced his work to tell a more sinister story: one of perseverance and mourning amidst the brutality of conflict.
“Memory of the Crucified” stands out in the collection, in the form of a cross constructed from nails recovered from churches destroyed in Russian attacks. This work, along with Aggressor, a boldly sexual sculpture featuring provocatively placed missiles, captures the profound essence of rebellion against invasion.
Meanwhile, a giant Russian doll, subtitled “From Russia with Love” and decorated with 1,000 bullets as spikes, embodies the irony of violence.
Ukrainian sculptor Mikhail Leva and his work, February 22, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Thomas Adamson)
“I think of[materials]as something that humans created to take someone’s life…I wanted to show that you can create something beautiful out of something that was created to kill,” he said. added.
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“All these works came from Russia with love,” Leva said with humor.
The sculptures will be unveiled to the public later this month at city halls in Paris’ 3rd and 15th arrondissements.
