Poetics of witnessing. Poetics of evidence
What does it mean to make art within the ongoing war? Few observations on staying home, empiricism and the price of metaphors.
1.4.2026, 19:00 CEST,
online (click for the Zoom link)
NIKITA KADAN
The work of Nikita Kadan (born 1982 in Kyiv) centers on his artistic exploration of post-communist social and political developments, and their origins and causes in the Soviet system. The artist is an observer and interpreter of historical shifts, and also of the connections and continuities between the communist past and turbo-capitalist present. Nikita Kadan is a member of the artist group R.E.P. (Revolutionary Experimental Space) since 2004 and a co-founder and member of the curatorial group and activities HUDRADA since 2008. Graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Kyiv, where he studied monumental painting, he now works with installation, sculpture, painting and wall drawings, sometimes in interdisciplinary collaboration with architects, writers, human rights activists and historians.
Nikita Kadan has had solo exhibitions 'Rubble Flower' at Jerome Poggi gallery (Paris, 2025), 'Siren Sickle Satellite' at the National Museum of Ukrainian Art in Kyiv (2025), 'Skin and Shel' at the Lewben Foundation in Vilnius (Lithuania, 2023) and “The Fire and the Ashes” at the Museum Sztuki, (Lodz, 2023). In 2021, the Pinchuk Art Centre (Kyiv) devoted a major solo exhibition to him, pursuing the initiative of the MUMOK (Vienna), which held his solo exhibition in 2019. His solo show 'The Possessed can Testify in Court' took place at M HKA Antwerp in 2018.
Nikita Kadan became the winner of the Pinchuk Art Centre Prize in 2011 and the Special Prize of the Future Generation Art Prize in 2014, and he participated in the Ukrainian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015 and 2022. He took part in the Matter of Art Biennial in Prague in 2024.
His works are now in numerous collections around the world, including the Tate Modern, London (UK), the Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR), the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Foundation (TBA21), the KADIST Foundation, Paris (FR), the National Art Museum in Kyiv (Ukraine), the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich (Germany), the MuHKa Museum Contemporary Art of Antwerp (Belgium).
Lead photo by Bert de Leenheer.
