About
Naïve
Art
Festival

2024

The Naïve Art Festival is a project about art without boundaries in a format without limitations. Those who admire, study, collect and create the Ukrainian naïve art have united to open a new artistic page. This is the first online naïve art festival which combines entertainment, exhibition and research.

The team of curators:

provide a new interpretation of the traditions and tendencies, history and modernity of the Ukrainian naïve art.
It is a project where art critics have a discussion in the messy kitchen amid the rave party with the unknown DJ’s music playing in the background. There is an old sofa in the over-refined museum space with the unbridled works of a genius amateur on it. More than 30 events of the festival program: presentations, excursions, lectures, master-classes, children’s quests, discussions, film screenings and music parties, as well as the Conference involving Ukrainian and foreign naïve art researches. It is up to you to choose time, place and format of learning about naïve art!

On the platform of the Naïve Art Festival, the team has gathered the classics and beginners, locations and collections, dialogues and emotions, research and works of the Ukrainian naïve art.
You will find them in 6 Sections:

Conference

Online conference Cosmos Inside. Artistic Practices of Outsiders in Ukraine and the World: Definitions, Historical Context and Modernity will allow comprehending the phenomenon of Ukrainian naïve art in its different dimensions. From theory and terminology to understanding and fascination — Ukrainian naïve art opens a wide field for research, reflections and conclusions. It will be written down in the history of Ukrainian art by culture experts, art critics and naïve art researcher from all over the world.

Collection

The selected works of amateur artists from 16th century to this day. This section contains painting, graphic art, collages, embroidery, theater, music and objects from Donbas to the Carpathians, from Polesia to Crimea. Choose any topic you like and learn about naïve art. And if you consider yourself a painter, complement the project’s collection with your own works. Fill in the application form, and the project curators will review them and add them to the collection.

Catalogue

A special printed edition of the Naïve Art Festival. It is the collection of curators’ texts and works of naïve art that will tell you about the philosophy and images of amateur art in layman’s terms. This section contains an electronic version of the edition and information on how to get a printed copy and add it to your library.

Events

The Naïve Art Festival allows you to take an excursion in the Museum or work together with an artist without leaving your home. Events section offers a program that will give you an idea of the depth and scale of our naïve art! Music parties, theater shows and film screenings together with friends, artists and the project team. Quests and master-classes for children, lectures, discussions and conferences. Join our events and plunge in the festival life and world of naïve art.

Virtual Museum

The place of experiment and dreams about what it could have been. The virtual space is divided into 2 parts — curator’s and foundation. In the first part, naïve art researchers Oleksandr Liapin, Stanislav Turina, Lidiia Lykhach, Petro Honchar, Pavlo Gudimov and Iryna Savchenko have prepared the original exhibitions of amateur art. The foundation part contains the collections of naïve art from Ukrainian museums.

EXPEDITION

In what region of Ukraine did the tradition of house painting appear? What village has the weirdest approach to folk art? What unexpected plots and techniques do amateur artists of your city use in their works? You can learn about it in Map section. The project team visited many cities, towns and villages of Ukraine collecting information about naïve art. Memorable works and interviews with artists are on the Map of Naïve Art. Create your own routes across naïve art!

Team

Anna Gudimova, Olena Khazova — project coordinators

Anna Kovalova — Conference coordinator

Maryna Bohush — text producer

Yurii Horpynych — administrator, Culture Expedition coordinator

Anastasiia Pereverten — project manager, parallel program curator

Kateryna Bolshakova — designer 

Anna Voitovych — Virtual Museum architect

Anna Voitenko, Sashko and Daryna Balabai, Alina Maksymenko — film crew 

Maksym Bilousov — photographer 

Roman Bilyi — web site project manager

Pavlo Yakubovskyi — web site designer

Ivan Kadeniuk — web site developer

Svitlana Velehan — web site administrator

Danylo Biletskyi — social communications coordinator

Solomiia Yaskiv — SMM-manager

Sofiia Kulik, Mykhailo Poberetskyi — animators

Valentyna Pravnyk — subtitles deciphering

Lara Yakovenko — designer of the Conference’s collected articles 

Dmytro Yankovyi — translator

Tetiana Vatazhyshyna — editor

Inna Kalenska — Conference administrator

Inna Baikova — accountant

Mykola Kalmykov — driver

 

Museums:

Ivan Honchar Museum, National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art, Poltava Art Museum, Pereiaslav National Historical and Ethnographic Reserve, Dnipropetrovsk Art Museum, National Museum of Hutsulshchyna and Pokuttya Folk Art, Berdychiv Historical Museum, Osmiorkin Artistic and Memorial Museum, Volyn Regional Ethnography Museum, Yahotyn Art Gallery of the Yahotyn State Historical Museum, Uman Regional Ethnography Museum.