Exhibition of graphic portfolio “Ukrainian Rhapsody”

Exhibition curators: Iva Sudec Andreis i Anamarija Komesarović

Exhibition space: basement

Admittance: free of charge

The exhibition of graphic portfolio “Ukrainian Rhapsody” is organized at the initiative of Mr Božo Biškupić, with which he commemorates the 50^th anniversary of the Biškupić Collection’s publication activities.

The graphic portfolio “Ukranian Rhapsody” was published on April 24^th, 2022 in Zagreb as part of Biškupić Collection’s edition, founded, edited, and graphically designed since 1972 by Božo Biškupić. The verses were written by Luko Paljetak and Taras Shevchenko. In each copy there are 14 graphic sheets made in the following techniques: the Hayter technique, drypoint, etching, aquatint, and linocut. The list of authors includes Nevenka Arbanas, Gordana Bakić, Tomislav Buntak, Igor Čabraja, Maja S. Franković, Svjetlan Junaković, Matko Mijić, Frane Paro, Dimitrije Popović, Zdenka Pozaić, Miran Šabić, Ivica Šiško, Zlatan Vrkljan, and Josip Zanki. The graphics are exhibited at the authors’ studios, as well as at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. The editor of the edition is Tomislav Buntak.

Two months after the war in the Ukraine broke out, on April 22^nd, 2022, the portfolio “Ukrainian Rhapsody” was published  by the Biškupić Collection. Mr Božo Biškupić is a former minister of culture, collector, and publisher. This year, he is commemorating the 50^th year of his Collection’s publication activities, bibliophilic issues, and collaborations with artists, most notably graphic artists; since 1972, he has personally taken part in publishing and editing over 140 graphic portfolios, books, and numerous monographs of contemporary Croatian artists. Deeply smitten by recent horrors of war, Biškupić wanted to express the concern and commiseration of Croats for the people of Ukraine, echoing his 1991 portfolio publication “Help Croatia, Croatia 1991”. A total of 44 Croatian and foreign artists, poets, historians, and philosophers then expressed, in their own way, their compassion for our country’s suffering.

This time, Biškupić invited our distinguished poet Luko Paljetak to write an imaginative dialogue with a Ukranian poet as part of a poem about the war in Ukraine. Paljetak chose the persecuted and renowned Ukranian poet and artist Taras Shevchenko, a born serf and servant at court who was later bought out by his master and, in the first half of the 19^th century, defended the idea of an independent Ukraine. He often conveyed the struggle of the Ukranian people against foreign oppression, their suffering, their thralldom, their tumultuous history, but also their freedom and glory. In his autobiographical poetry, translated into Croatian by Paljetak, Shevchenko speaks out as a true prophet, a declaimer, an iconic figure, a paradigmatic national martyr, an eternal light shining on the Ukrainian idea and their identity. In this inspired poem, Shevchenko’s powerful verses from the Kobzar, his most famous collection of poems, are contrasted with Paljetak’s reflections about freedom. Like medieval minstrels, they speak in the name of the people, justice, and truth; like fighters, they wield rhymes as weapons, in a spiritual concordance.

Deeply impressed by Paljetak’s poem, Biškupić invited 14 artists to offer graphic sheets as their own personal stamps, to use artistic means to accuse, protest, and transform their personal impressions into art. Many of these authors have already shown their humanitarianism when, during Croatia’s Homeland War, they donated their artworks to be auctioned for raising funds to help the injured, the children, and the restoration of cultural monuments damaged by war. The homeland was the site of their innermost reflections, and now, like 30 years ago, a roaring torrent of their emotions is manifested as an accusation of a bitter reality. Because forming and expressing, channeling of emotions into a graphic matrix and an imprint, a form, a sign, a trace, into color, is one way out. Art will certainly not mitigate the horrific and disintegrated state to which we bear witness, nor will it reduce human suffering, save the world or stop the war, but it may help us to stop, to think, and to rediscover hope. Perhaps it will sharpen our perspective, warn us of the bad, of our failures, act on our conscience, and thus help us to heal and recuperate.