Sculptures by Ukrainian artist destroyed in Copenhagen – photos

Unknown individuals have destroyed two sculptures by Ukrainian artist Mariia Kulykivska from her exhibition titled My Body Is a Battlefield in Copenhagen on 22 December.

Source: Mariia Kulykivska

Quote: "Just before Christmas in Copenhagen, my sculptures were deliberately destroyed: two pregnant figures and one memorial figure made of flowers. It was a targeted act of violence against the female body – my own body, cast in sculptural form."

Details: The artist created the sculptures at Garage33 in Kyiv, a gallery-shelter and independent, artist-run space collectively established during the war.

Kulykivska noted that this is not the first time her works have been destroyed. In 2014, pro-Russian militants shot her sculptures at the Izolyatsia art centre in Donetsk, which was occupied at the time, and after her performance "254" on the steps of the Hermitage Museum, she was detained and threatened with compulsory psychiatric confinement.

"What happened in Copenhagen follows the same logic: the destruction of art as political pressure, violence without accountability. This is not vandalism. This is systematic violence that is being repeated," says Kulykivska.

Law enforcement agencies in Denmark are currently dealing with the case.

Ukrainian House responded to the destruction and published a statement in which, together with Spilne Art, they condemned this act of hatred.

Quote: "We regard the destruction of these works not only as irreparable damage inflicted on art but also as an attack on the stories, dignity and meanings embodied in the sculptures of Mariia Kulykivska. This was a memory of the war, of the vulnerability and resilience of Ukrainian women, which has been desecrated."

More details: The exhibition My Body Is a Battlefield opened on 18 November and was due to run until 26 December.

The works of Mariia Kulykivska symbolise the strength, resilience and beauty of Ukrainian culture, which continues to live and create even during the war.

At the heart of the concept is her own body as a real site of memory, struggle and pain. For more than 10 years, the artist has been creating sculptural objects – exact casts of her body – through which she reflects on loss, female corporeality, war and survival.

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