WIs a one-armed saint shown here to exhibition visitors? One might think so, because the board on which Antonius “the Great” is looking back at them breaks off under the right shoulder blade. His features are not created with paints, but with simple chalk. As much as this suits the saint, who is considered the epitome of the ascetic hermit, the question arises: Isn't this quite barren for Eastern Christianity, where the painting base of the icons is usually gilded?
But this Saint Anthony was created under special conditions. “These icons fought,” says Oleksandr Klymenko at the opening of the exhibition “Icons Against War,” for which he and his wife Sofia Atlantova traveled from Kiev to Frankfurt. The Antonius was created when Klymenko served as a medical assistant near Bakhmut, which was fought over until May 2023. And used ammunition boxes served as the painting surface for all the icons on display here.
As much as the artist couple improvises with the colors, the boxes are always unfinished. They are the reason for the icons and the reason for what is happening in Ukraine, says Atlantova. While the box is a “symbol of death,” the icon is a “symbol of life.” While painting, she and her husband struggled with death. But, as Atlantova tells it, the experience of war should be “transformed” into hope. The icons are therefore also a message of resurrection.
As they painted, the two prayed that other countries would be spared from wars like Russia's against Ukraine. “The war is terrible,” says Atlantova. But another message from the artists and the other Ukrainians present here is also clear at the opening: the homeland can currently only be defended with a weapon in hand. If the Russians laid down their arms, the war would be over. If the Ukrainians did that, their country would no longer exist.
Most of the income flows into mobile hospitals
Another central component of the project also proves that war and life are not irreconcilable opposites: Anyone who wants can buy the icons painted by Klymenko and Atlantova – the Antonius painted by Bakhmut for around 8,000 euros. Most of the proceeds from sales go to a mobile hospital that treats seriously injured people near the front. A smaller portion goes to a Dominican-run rehabilitation center for Ukrainian fighters who need support after hospitalization. “Many of them have no legs,” says Atlantova about their fate.
The artist couple began painting icons not just with Russia's major attack on February 24, 2022, but with the attack on Donbass in 2014. Since then, the exhibition has been shown in almost 50 cities in 19 states, including New York and the European Parliament.
How did she get to the church of St. Hedwig in Griesheim? Essentially thanks to the commitment of Peter Hoffmann. The Catholic layman familiar with Central and Eastern Europe has contacted the Greek Catholic Bishop Bohdan Dzyurakh. He organized the visit of Klymenko and Atlantova to Frankfurt. Dzyurakh opens the opening with a minute's silence for the war victims.
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