"A Revolution in Orange" exhibit features photographs from Ukraine (02/20/05)

"A Revolution in Orange" exhibit features photographs from Ukraine

NEW YORK - The Cooper Union, in collaboration with Yara Arts Group, will present the exhibit "A Revolution in Orange" featuring photographs by Alexander Khantaev from the 17-day non-violent struggle for democracy in Ukraine. The exhibit opens Monday, February 28, and runs through Thursday, March 11, at the Humanities Gallery of the Engineering Building of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

The photographs in the show depict a spontaneous citizens' revolt against a fraudulent election and corrupt government that ended in victory. Ukraine's Orange Revolution, is vividly depicted in a series of photographs that capture the drama and the spirit of this remarkable moment in recent history. Mr. Khantaev's photographs reflect the changing moods of the crowds protesting on the main square in Kyiv throughout November and December 2004.

He had come to Kyiv to work with Yara Arts Group, a resident company at New York's La MaMa Experimental Theater, which was rehearsing a new theater production just outside Kyiv's Independence Square.

Photographer Margaret Morton, who has worked with Yara and teaches at The Cooper Union, chose the photographs in the exhibit and helped arrange the show.

Mr. Khantaev is Buryat, an indigenous people of Siberia. He was born in Irkutsk and studied at the East Siberian Institute and the University of Irkutsk. His photographs have appeared in numerous publications in Ulan Ude, Buryatia, as well as in Moscow, Kyiv and New York. His work has been exhibited in Ulan Ude, Kyiv, New York, the Aga Buryat Autonomous Region, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and Indiana University.

Mr. Khantaev's first individual exhibit featured photographs from a Buryat shaman ritual, which later formed the core of the book "Shanar: Dedication Ritual of a Buryat Shaman," written by Virlana Tkacz with Sayan Zhambalov and Wanda Phipps. The book was awarded the Ben Franklin Prize, and the photographs from this book were show in Kyiv at RA Gallery and the Khanenko Museum of East and West Art, as well as at La MaMa Galleria, Tibet House and the New York Public Library in New York. Other exhibits by Mr. Khantaev featured photographs he took during research trips with the Yara Arts Group to Buryat villages in eastern Mongolia and northern China.

His most recent exhibit "Koliada: Winter Rituals in the Carpathian Mountains," was shown at La MaMa Gallery in January, and had previously been shown at the RA Gallery in Kyiv and the Cultural Center of the village of Kryvorivnia, where most of the photographs were taken.

The hours for the exhibit "A Revolution in Orange" are: 11 a.m.-7 p.m. on weekdays; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturdays; closed Sundays. The Cooper Union Humanities Gallery is located at 51 Astor Place (first floor), at Eighth Street between Third and Fourth avenues.

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