The anniversary exhibition of Aliaksandr Kishchanka (1933–1997) displays paintings, weaving, documents (photos and publications) provided by the artist’s family, as well as those belonging to the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus.
Aliaksandr Kishchanka was born in the village of Bely Kolodez (Bogucharsky district, Voronezh region) on May 13, 1933. He studied in the Lviv Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts under Roman Selsky, Ivan Skobalo and Andrei Monastyrsky. He lived and worked in Kyiv, and, since 1963, in Minsk. The artist became a member of the Artists’ Union in 1964. From 1963 to 1968 he taught at the Faculty of Monumental and Decorative Art of the Belarusian State Theatre and Art Institute. People’s Artist of Belarus (1991). He is awarded the Francysk Skaryna Medal (1993). Twice winner of the State Prize of Belarus (1980 and 1996).
The artist’s works are in the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, the National Center for Contemporary Arts of the Republic of Belarus, the Mogilev Regional Art Museum named after P. V. Maslenikov, the funds of the Belarusian Union of Artists, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the A. M. Kishchenko House-Museum of the Boguchar Regional Museum of Local History, and in other public and private collections. The author of a number of monumental works in the techniques of mosaic, painting and weaving, including the ‘Tapestry of the Century’, included in the Guinness Book of Records.
The artist passed away more than a quarter century ago, but his works preserve his spiritual and artistic power and are still of great interest. The features of easel art present in his monumental pieces and vice versa, the breadth of stylistic reminiscences, the manifestations of folk beliefs in his professional work, the combination of delicacy and democratism determine Kishchanka’s works’ ambiguity, multifacedness and spectacularity, ensuring their popular appeal.
The curators of the exhibition are Valentina Voytsekhovskaya, a leading research worker at the Department of Belarusian Art in the 20th–21st centuries (National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus); Frants Korzun, a scientific associate at the Exhibition Department of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus
The exhibition will run until July 9, 2023
