You're reading: Giant new mural splits Kyivans

The new mural painted on the wall of the multi-storied apartment building in downtown Kyiv has triggered intense discussion in social networks.

The new mural painted on the wall of the multi-storied apartment building in downtown Kyiv has triggered intense discussion in social networks.

Australian street artist Guido van Helten barely finished his painting on the wall of the 18-story building on Lesya Ukrainka Boulevard in Kyiv on Oct. 28, when the work became a bone of contention among Kyivans.

Helten’s artwork features a young woman pressing a long vyshyvanka, a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt, to herself, as if deciding whether to wear it.

“The artistry is dedicated to feminineness and beauty of Ukrainian women,” Geo Leros, one of the coordinators of WeCityArt initiative that invited the Australian artist to Kyiv, wrote on his Facebook page on Oct. 14.

The 42-meter-high painting is the tallest in Europe, according to Leros. The work lasted over two weeks. Philanthropists paid for the artist’s work and materials.

The new mural on a wall of an apartment building in Kyiv is the highest in Europe, according to the WeCityArt, the organization that ordered it.

The public’s opinion is split.

“Incredibly beautiful,” Yulia Andreyevna commented on the mural’s image on Leros Facebook page. Others even wrote they wanted their apartment buildings to be decorated with murals too.

Yet some Kyivans were disappointed. They criticized the idea and the quality of the picture, saying that the woman’s black sleeve looks confusing.

“It’s like a black sausage,” reads a comment by Kyiv citizen Olha Horbatenko on the mural’s image posted by Hromadske online TV Facebook page. “I don’t understand how the woman and the vyshyvanka are connected on this picture. They look separate.”

Many share that impression.

Kyiv artist and designer Sasha Khomyakov believes that Helten did not do a good job painting the hand, which is why it’s not clear that the woman is trying on a vyshyvanka.

Serhiy Leshchenko, a lawmaker with the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko and a former journalist, called the mural “mediocre” in a Facebook post on Oct. 28 and said it reminds him of clothes-fitting in Metrograd, an underground shopping mall in central Kyiv. When some commentators said they liked the mural, he trolled them.

“I’d like to draw a 15-story penis on a building. I picked a building on Khreshchatyk Street for that. Can I do it?” Leshchenko wrote in the further discussion on Facebook. But later Leshchenko publicly apologized for the comparison and deleted his post.

“I should have been using metaphors more cautiously in my position,” he wrote later that day.“Still I think that one shouldn’t create a mural because ‘it is better than a shabby wall’ and paint walls with works lacking sense and aesthetic value.”

Journalist Mariya Zhartovskaya was surprised by the criticism and cited the example of Edi Rama, a mayor of Tirana, the capital of Albania, who ordered to paint old buildings in the city center into bright colors, which led him to winning the City Mayors World Mayor contest in 2004.

“I think that the problem is not the murals but the people who don’t let positive and beauty into their lives,” Zhartovskaya wrote on her Facebook page on Oct. 29.

Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected]