Music in Excess: A Concert of Ukrainian Avant-Garde Music

Join us for a musical companion to our exhibition Painting in Excess: Kyiv’s Art Revival, 1985–1993. The concert features Ukrainian compositions from the 1980s and early 1990s, recreating the cultural atmosphere of this time. Musicians include: Valeriya Sholokhova (cello), Margarita Rovenskaya (piano), Carrie Frey (viola), Sabina Torosjan (violin), and Lauren Cauley (violin).

Selected with the assistance of musicologist Dr. Leah Bastone from Vienna University, the compositions reflect the trying and transitional times of perestroika and the burst of creativity they engendered. The program features:

Volodymyr Runchak, Homo Ludens III (1991)—cello; Ivan Nebesnyy, Dialogue with My Own Reflection (1992)—string quartet; Valentyn Silvestrov, Postlude No. 3 for Cello and Piano (1981-82); Yuri Laniuk, Anticipation Sonata (1993)—cello, piano, and tape. A curator-led exhibition tour follows the concert (in person only).

Registration is required to attend in person or to receive a link for the livestream. Visit here to sign up!

Before attending in person: Please carefully review the Zimmerli’s Health & Safety Protocols, including proof of vaccination and mask requirements.

This program is supported by the Avenir Foundation Endowment Fund. Visit the Zimmerli’s website for a full list of programs.

Related exhibition 
On view at the Zimmerli through March 13, 2022, Painting in Excess: Kyiv’s Art Revival, 1985–1993, which highlights an explosion of styles, rediscovered histories, and newly found freedoms that blossomed against the economic scarcity and ecological calamity that marked the collapse of the Soviet Union. The exhibition represents the culmination of an important international collaboration that brings together more than 60 works of art, the majority of which have never been exhibited in the United States. A selection of paintings and works on paper is drawn primarily from the Zimmerli’s Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, supplemented by loans from the Abramovych Foundation, and a group of Ukrainian art collectors, facilitated by support from Tymofieyev Foundation. In addition, this is a rare opportunity to exhibit these 33 artists together, many of whom are the most well-known of their generation in Ukraine. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue of the same title, co-published with Rutgers University Press.

Zimmerli Art Museum
The Zimmerli  is one of the largest and most distinguished university-based museums in the country, and is located on the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. The museum collects, preserves, researches, and exhibits world-class works of art to provide the university community and diverse regional, national, international audiences with direct experience of the visual arts. Scholarly activities make art accessible through exhibitions, publications, and educational programs.

Russian and Soviet Nonconformist Art Collection
The Zimmerli’s holdings of Russian and Soviet art are unmatched in the United States, providing a unique overview from the fourteenth century to the present day. The museum’s George Riabov Collection of Russian Art showcases Russia’s diverse artistic heritage, and includes examples of art from icons to paintings by the Peredvizhniki (Wanderers), Ballet Russes set and costume design, and works by the Avant-Garde.

The Zimmerli holds the largest collection in the world of Soviet nonconformist art, thanks to a remarkable 1991 donation from Norton and Nancy Dodge. Over 20,000 works by more than 1,000 artists reveal a culture that defied the strict, state-imposed conventions of Socialist Realism. This encyclopedic array of nonconformist art extends from about 1956 to 1991, from the beginning of Khrushchev’s cultural “thaw” to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In addition to art made in Russia, the collection includes nonconformist art produced in the ethnically-diverse Soviet republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. A generous gift by Claude and Nina Gruen extended the Zimmerli’s Russian art holdings to the post-Soviet era, with later works by nonconformist artists as well as by new generations active in the 1990s and 2000s. Large archival holdings support scholarship in the collection.

Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, stands among America’s highest-ranked, most diverse public research universities, with 71,000+ undergraduate and graduate students, as well as 530,000 alumni around the world. Founded in 1766, as one of only nine colonial colleges established before the American Revolution, Rutgers is the nation’s eighth-oldest institution of higher learning.