Ukrainian Museum wraps building in collection for 50th anniversary
The glass front of the Ukrainian Museum in New York now shows its own collection back to the street.
Artist Molly Gochman has wrapped the building's facade, entryway, windows and lobby in large-scale reproductions of artefacts from its holdings. The work, titled Memory Collage, was unveiled on 26 September to mark the museum's 50th anniversary, according to The Art Newspaper.
Gochman made the piece by working through the stores with Maria Rewakowicz, the museum's head of collections. She explored the permanent collection, the objects a museum keeps and cares for over time, and selected fragments to scan and enlarge. The museum's project archive describes Memory Collage as created from scanned fragments of its collection.
The source material is vast. The permanent collection holds more than 46,000 objects. They include photographs, documents, textiles and ceramics, so the enlarged details on the glass range from paper records to woven cloth and fired clay.
The building itself sits in a fitting spot. The museum stands in the part of Manhattan's Lower East Side in New York City long known as Ukrainian Village. It was founded by the Ukrainian National Women's League. Its collection dates back to 600 pieces of Ukrainian folk art, handmade work rooted in community life, acquired at the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair.
Gochman brings a family history to the commission. Her ancestors fled pogroms, organised attacks, in Talne, Ukraine. She has worked in public space in the city before, with benches installed in historically Ukrainian neighbourhoods across New York City and Brooklyn, as reported by White Hot Magazine.
The museum states its mission is to preserve, study and share the artistic and cultural heritage of Ukraine and its global diaspora. For visitors, this means the anniversary display starts on the pavement. You meet enlarged traces of the collection before you step inside to find the originals.
