Nikita Kadan

Over the past 20 years, Nikita Kadan (b. 1982) has produced a considerable body of work comprised of drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures, and installation. Drawing from his activist roots, Kadan’s unique practice analyzes Ukrainian history at every level. Twice selected to represent his country at the Venice Biennale, including in 2022, Kadan has exhibited all over the world, with his monumental The Shelter II currently featured in Castello di Rivoli’s “Artists in a Time of War.”

On display is a suite of nine charcoal works on paper by Kadan from an ongoing series of text-based drawings. Kadan began the series shortly after the full-scale invasion in 2022, when he was invited by Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi to participate in an exhibition in Bucharest in which participants were asked to write the phrase “STOP WAR” in their own style. For Kadan these drawings began a new form of practice - in what the artist describes as a “humanistic ritual,” he repeated the drawing of the phrase over and over again, resulting in what reads as a heartfelt plea for resolution.

Kadan created much of the text series in the basement of Voloshyn Gallery in Kyiv, whose underground architecture made it a suitable bomb shelter. Living in the gallery-turned-shelter for weeks, Kadan produced a remarkable series of text works which have been shown around the world and featured in Artforum.

Nikita Kadan has been the subject of recent solo presentations in New York, Art Basel Miami Beach, Paris, Vienna, and Kyiv. His work is held in the public collections of the Centre Pompidou and the Tate Modern, among others.