Andreas Trossek (AT): It’s interesting that we’ll be doing this interview in English. When I became the editor-in-chief of this periodical, one of the decisions I made was that it would be fully bilingual. So, as you browse through it, one text column is in Estonian, and the other is in English. The reasoning behind this is that art is always international, and this helps, so to speak, to spread the word. After all, you have to take into account the population of the country, which in Estonia is only a little over a million. Meaning, it’s a small country!

Olha Balashova (OB): Yes, Kyiv alone is at least twice the size.

Lizaveta Herman (LH): This is very important indeed. For example, I had to put together a reading list for history classes at the Estonian Academy of Arts. But only a little material on Ukrainian art has been translated into English. So, ultimately, my reading list didn’t consist of what I thought was important or would best represent my topic of research, but simply what was available in English.

Before the full-scale war, a few things were translated into English but not much. For example, Olha and I edited a book about the 1960s (Eds. Lizaveta Herman, Olha Balashova, The Art of Ukrainian Sixties. Kyiv: Osnovy Publishing, 2020. – Ed.). Luckily we were able to translate and publish the book, so now it’s available in English. And while it’s not online, at least we can make PDFs of the different articles to share with students.

AT: What’s the language policy at your national gallery?

OB: I worked for the National Art Museum of Ukraine for three years as a Deputy Director for Development. In the same year I started (2017), the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation was established. If we managed to get funds, we produced catalogues and other publications in both Ukrainian and English – for just the same reasons why you publish in two languages. But it’s not easy to raise money for art. That’s the problem! And because the situation in our cultural field is so uncertain, we sometimes have to take a DIY approach – even in the National Art Museum of Ukraine – simply because there aren’t sufficient funds to do things any other way.

AT: We have had a similar foundation in Estonia since 1994, which was when the Cultural Endowment of Estonia was re-established. The foundation re-distributes tax money collected on alcohol, tobacco and gambling. But if I understand correctly, this Ukrainian Cultural Foundation is more like an extension of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine.

OB: The foundation is a separate legal entity under the ministry and was made possible when a special law was passed. It is a new kind of institution and is all very project-based, with a body of experts who make the decisions on which projects to support.

LH: Before every grant proposal season, there is a public competition to select the members of the expert panel that decides which projects are funded.

I think this extra bureaucratic procedure to select the experts makes things quite complicated. But it’s necessary. It adds transparency. Before, grant decisions were made by appointment, and while the system might not have been corrupt as such, it wasn’t far off.

Even so, there is still a high level of distrust of state money in Ukraine, especially because it can seem as if all this money is “already distributed” before anyone even hears about it. So the system is not perfect and still receives a lot of criticism. Nevertheless, I think it’s a revolution. Beforehand, you wouldn’t see any money from the state or the ministry in the contemporary art field because there were always more operas, theatres or folk events to fund.

AT: If you look at the situation, generalise and strip it down to the bone, what would you say: Is contemporary art financed by the state in Ukraine, or is it financed by the oligarchs in the private sector (for example, Victor Pinchuk, who is always so visible at the Venice Art Biennale)?

OB: I would say that contemporary art in Ukraine is financed by private money, but this comes from our families, not the oligarchs. There just aren’t that many artists who can make it financially without that support. We’re always joking that our families support us, and in this way, they support the Ukrainian art scene!

LH: Well, I would disagree! Certainly, Olha is right in so much as a lot of important institutions are run by people who come from the grassroots – us included. And, of course, to run these institutions or finance yourself, you have to be supported in the beginning, at least a little bit. So it is right to speak about numbers and where the real money comes from. But still, it’s a mix of public and private money, just with different amounts coming from each. For example, there is the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv, which is obviously funded by its namesake; and there are also some separate initiatives financed by big businesses. But these projects are rarely “game changers”. It’s just private money for projects that never go beyond private interests and that’s also the reason why they don’t have any wider influence.

One thing that has been quite influential is support from the European Union – for instance, from institutions like the British Council and the Goethe Institute – especially since 2014. I think this influence is good. It’s a kind of “soft power”, which, in recent years, has been more about supporting Ukrainian art and highlighting and promoting democratic values than, for example, promoting the German language.

The Ukraine Institute, which is for cultural diplomacy, was influential because it made many things possible. The same can be said of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. Again, there are many ways in which things could be improved, but at least these institutions did something.

OB: Yes, you’re right. When you are in Venice, for example, you can see Pinchuk’s name everywhere. Unfortunately, all the efforts made inside Ukraine are invisible abroad. Yes, we have these small private initiatives. And maybe some artists manage to get out of the country to make a name for themselves – for example, the R.E.P. group. But this is entirely their own personal achievement, not something that was supported by institutions or the state.

AT: The R.E.P. group? Rael Artel, an independent curator, invited them to Estonia quite a few times back in the 2000s. But did you also have George Soros’s foundation in Ukraine during the 1990s?

LH: Yes. It was very important.

OB: It was.

LH: Personally, we can judge the foundation’s value only because we researched it – Olha and I were not even in high school in the 1990s. And since there is no proper archive, we had to research the foundation on the basis of what little information was available. We know that there were many important exhibitions of Ukrainian art, as well as of international art brought to Ukraine. So it was something of a phenomenon. But still, at least from my perspective, it had no direct influence and no clear consequences.

Media art is a good example. This was a big thing for the Soros Centre. They had equipment previously unavailable in Ukraine and curators trained as media art curators. But when the support for media art ended, this whole thing – an entire generation of artists and curators as a big phenomenon –, also stopped.

I think the Soros Centre also contributed to the institutionalisation of curation. Of course, the centre wasn’t the only thing responsible for the emergence of curated exhibitions, but it was important. At the same time, when the money dried up, the centre’s influence was also cut short.

OB: I think the Soros Centre had an indirect influence. It helped raise a generation of art professionals, artists and art managers. And it was this generation that established new institutions.

LH: Here, I agree with you.

AT: I think it was quite similar in Estonia. The Soros Centre of the 1990s was legendary because, at the time, they had more money than the Ministry of Culture in Estonia. And, of course, the artists loved that!

LH: Same here.

AT: At the same time, this was a relatively brief period, and when Soros pulled out, they went to negotiate with the Ministry of Culture of Estonia. And to give just one example: To this day, this small office in Tallinn organises the national pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale. So this was a direct legacy of those legendary times.

In fact, I would say that there is a clear division line even today: Everything pre-Soros is a little dodgy – like “Soviet Estonian art” – but anything post-Soros is perceived as “normal” contemporary Western art. I was wondering, is it similar in Ukraine?

LH: No, I wouldn’t say that. Perhaps because there was no Soros influence in Lviv, the situation in the western part of Ukraine was quite different. For example, “Impreza” (1989), the first international biennale in Ukraine, was held in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk. Also, in addition to Kyiv, there was another Soros centre in Odesa, so Ukraine was the only state that had two Soros centres.

OB: Except for Russia.

LH: Except for Russia. But let’s not pronounce this r-word out loud; it is not allowed. Still, it’s difficult to judge the Soros Centre’s influence on the Ukrainian scene as a whole because its focus was primarily on Kyiv – another thing that was criticised.

Actually, and this has come to me only as we’ve been speaking, the Soros Centre did have a positive effect: If it hadn’t been there, the Russian art scene would have had an even greater influence in Ukraine.

OB: I agree.

LH: And the influence of Russia was considerable because the two countries were very much connected, with both Kharkiv and Kyiv closely tied to Moscow. Looking back, this felt almost natural – there were so many more opportunities in Moscow, and it was only an overnight train away.

OB: … more institutions that were well-developed, for example.

LH: So, historically speaking, the Soros Centre fulfilled its main mission of slowing down Soviet/Russian influence.

OB: Absolutely.

AT: What about the Venice Biennale: Is it important? Because when you look at the map, Ukraine is much closer to “old Europe” than Estonia is.

LH: Everyone is striving to get to Venice. The first Ukrainian national pavilion was in 2001, and for more than 20 years, every pavilion was accompanied by a scandal. There was always something! And I mean, real scandals, not just criticism, but people fighting – sometimes literally. Something always goes wrong, although the reasons for this are complex.

Firstly, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine commissions work, but it hasn’t yet established a proper procedure for doing so. And the problem is that they don’t just give money to projects; they also have to manage them. Secondly, Venice is a substitute for, well, everything really. So everyone wants to get there. There’s no museum of contemporary art in Ukraine where an a artist could have a solo retrospective so your work isn’t accessible to the public, and it feels like your art practice will never be fulfilled. As we spoke about before, there is not enough international representation for Ukrainian artists. There is no art market in Ukraine, so you can’t have financial success, etc. So because of all of this, the Venice Biennale presents the only real opportunity. Of course, there’s also lots of criticism and lots of irony, but for many people, exhibiting there is an important goal – you have to get there to prove that you are important.

In 2022, I was one of the curators, together with my colleagues and my commercial gallery. We are quite capable at fundraising – which is one reason why we were selected – and the artist we applied with is one of the greatest living artists in Ukraine (and it was an honour that he let us represent him). So we were joking that this would be the first pavilion without a scandal. And then…

OB: And then the war started.

Lizaveta Herman is a curator and art historian as well as co-founder (in 2018) of the contemporary art gallery The Naked Room, Kyiv. She was co-curator of the Pavilion of Ukraine (Pavlo Makov), 59th Venice Art Biennial.

Olha Balashova is an art historian, curator and critic and the head of the Museum of Contemporary Art NGO, Kyiv. Established in 2020, this organisation advocates for the necessity of creating a new kind of museum institution in Ukraine.

Lizaveta Herman and Olha Balashova were visiting researchers in the Estonian Academy of Arts with the support of the Estonian Research Council in the spring semester of 2023.

Andreas Trossek is the editor-in-chief of KUNST.EE.