Lviv reopens parts of National Gallery `to show we are alive'
LVIV, UKRAINE >> At Lviv's grand and imposing Potocki Palace, now this western province's National Gallery, workmen rolled coats of deep-apricot paint over walls that until a few months ago held works by French painter Georges de La Tour and other baroque masters.
These days, the walls are empty because those works, along with paintings by Francisco Goya, Peter Paul Rubens and Titian, valued at millions of dollars each, have been whisked away to secret locations to protect them from the threat of Russian airstrikes. Now, some parts of the National Gallery's 65,000-piece collection are being put back on exhibit in the organization's network of galleries for Ukrainians hungry for culture in the midst of war. For gallery director Taras Voznyak, putting up the work is an act of resistance.
“Putin now has the goal of turning Ukrainians into nobody, into nothing,” he said, adding, “In order to show that we are alive, we have opened several branches.”
The Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery, as it is formally known, maintains 18 branches in buildings that include palaces, castles and cathedrals across Lviv province.
Located 40 miles from Poland and boasting centuries of ornate architecture, Lviv's city center is a UNESCO world heritage site, stamped by the influences of several empires, including the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ukraine's cultural capital, Lviv was a popular European tourist destination before the war, drawing 2.5 million visitors a year. Though not immune to Russian attacks, during the war it has become a refuge for displaced Ukrainians fleeing places devastated by Russian bombardment.
Voznyak said he might next month even open the main gallery in the ornate century-old palace, now being readied with repainting and repairs. Voznyak said he was also planning online exhibits and, perhaps in the future if he had funding for it, exhibitions in spaces built underground — a measure he said that could help galleries adapt to the new era of war.