Yuri Leiderman: "Victory is the only form of freedom today"

"History has treated us so harshly that Ukrainians no longer have any illusions," states one of the main intellectuals of contemporary Ukrainian art, Yuri Leiderman. While in Berlin, he is acutely aware of every attempt to preserve the old imperial myth of Odesa's specialness.

In the interview, the artist explains why the struggle for the Pushkin monument is a marker of the lack of internal culture, and the recognition of Ivan Marchuk is a tragedy. He reflects on how his own works predicted the war and hopes that his portraits of dictators Hussein and Ceausescu will soon be in the National Art Museum of Ukraine.

Leiderman gives a frank assessment of the Venice Biennale and his complicated relationship with Odesa artists Oleksandr Roitburd and Serhiy Anufriev. He also discusses why, after the victory, Ukraine will inevitably become a tough nation-state, how the American genius Philip Gaston is connected to the Potemkin Stairs, and why victory is the only form of freedom that matters today.

Reference. Yuriy Leiderman is an artist and writer. He was born in 1963 in Odesa. Since the early 80s, he has participated in exhibitions of unofficial art in Odesa and Moscow. In the 80s and 90s, he lived in Moscow and was a member of the so-called Moscow conceptualism. Since 2004 he has been living in Germany. Since 2014, he has recognized himself as a purely Ukrainian artist. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions of contemporary art. He is the author of several books of essays and diary prose.

Yuriy Leiderman. IMAGE: Facebook of Yuri Leiderman

You have been living in Berlin for many years. Has this city become a "neutral zone" for you, where it is convenient to deconstruct meanings, or has it already turned into a myth with its own pressure?

It is rather a neutral place. To be honest, I don't quite like words like "deconstructing meaning" or "deconstructing myth". The word "deconstruction" is too postmodern. It is connected with Derrida's practice, and we use it too often now, substituting simple concepts like disagreement and doubt.

For me , Berlin is exactly neutral territory. I am a person who easily gets used to any space because I mostly live in the inner world. I like the city, but I could absolutely live in any Central European city with a similar look and climate.

SCREEN SHOT from the interview with Yuri Leiderman

I lived in Moscow for 20 years, and I was uncomfortable there. These endless sleeping areas, houses that stand like jagged teeth. And Berlin, Paris, Vienna are fine.

I look for Odesa everywhere. Sometimes it even annoys my friends. I look at something beautiful and say: "Well, it's just like in Odesa!" I need an understandable grid of neighborhoods, eclectic historicism, so that the houses of the late nineteenth century stand close to each other, and chestnuts, plane trees, and linden trees grow along the streets. In Germany, I could afford to live in just such a place, close to the center. In Moscow, I could not afford it.

Then why not Odesa itself?

This is a situation that, unfortunately, is not up to me now. To my great regret, let's just say.

You once compared Odesa to a "long strip along the sea," contrasting it with the imperial vertical. How do you feel about the decolonization of Odesa today and the search for a new urban myth?

I have an absolute positive attitude towards decolonization. But I don't understand why we need to look for new myths. Why should we live by myths at all when reality is much more interesting? Many of my friends, relatives and childhood friends still have this myth about "Odesa-Odessochka", "shalands full of mullets", songs by Arkady Severny and the stupid movie "Liquidation" in their minds. I can't stand it all. The things they long for are long gone. Or rather, it never existed. On the path of decolonization, we can find so many concrete and profound things that myths will simply become unnecessary.

Yuri Leiderman, Women (2026). IMAGE: Facebook by Yuriy Leiderman

The other side of this myth, which I also do not tolerate: "Odesa is a special city, it has never been entirely Ukraine." Oh, my God! Every city in Ukraine is special. Chernihiv is special, Poltava is absolutely mystically special, Donetsk is special, Ivano-Frankivsk is special.

When people start talking about the international Odesa, French and Italian architects, and the opera house, they completely forget who built it all and with what money. It was done with money from the exploitation of Ukraine. Why was Porto Franco needed? Because Ukrainian grain was exported through Odesa, which was being squeezed out of Ukrainian peasants. Odesa was built with money squeezed from Ukrainian fields and the Ukrainian people. This must be clearly understood.

Nevertheless, even with the general acceptance of decolonization, many citizens have questions about the renaming of streets or the fight over the Pushkin monument. I feel absolutely normal about this. What is this monument to Pushkin? There was a monument and there is no monument. People who speak so loudly for the specific Odesa culture, which is allegedly being destroyed, simply demonstrate a lack of internal culture. Culture should not be outside, not in the form of idols. Is Pushkin inside you? Why do you need a bust?

You were a part of Moscow conceptualism. Why did your position become distinctly pro-Ukrainian after 2014?

In Odesa in the 80s, we, of course, interacted with the Ukrainian environment, but life went on as usual. On the one hand, I have always considered myself a Ukrainian artist in some sense, but on the other hand, I did not push this issue for a long time. In the early 2000s, both Russian and Ukrainian curators could announce me at exhibitions. If they asked me directly who I considered myself, I would joke: "Don't bother, I'm just a Jewish guy from Odesa." But I have always followed what is happening in Ukraine, it touched me.

Yuriy Leiderman, The Shore of the Lost Boats (2026). IMAGE: Facebook of Yuriy Leiderman

The final turning point was the Maidan. When I looked at what was happening, everything inside me turned upside down: "Oh my God, these are my people, so beautiful, strong, bright. The best people in the world - and this is my people.

Before the full-scale war, I had an idealistic idea that Ukraine could become a kind of European Switzerland, where all the persecuted find refuge, and Ukrainian culture is not limited to the language. Gogol is a Russian-speaking Ukrainian writer, Sholem Aleichem is Yiddish-speaking, Sacher-Masoch is German-speaking, and Bruno Schulz is Polish-speaking. But now, of course, these issues have receded into the background.

Even back in the 80s, in the performance "If You Face South, Moscow Will Be Far Behind," you seemed to understand everything. What does being a Ukrainian artist mean to you now?

On the one hand, being a Ukrainian artist today means absolute responsibility and sincerity. In general, "sincerity" for me is the most important and attractive feature of the Ukrainian environment. On the other hand, these are specific professional connections, creative work and friendships, our joint projects.

Yuri Leiderman, "If you face south, Moscow will be far behind" (1983). PHOTO: Facebook of Yuri Leiderman

Your paths with the Odesa artist Serhii Anufriiev diverged long ago, both politically and ideologically. Is there any room left for a dialog with the Anufriev you started with in the 1980s?

First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest condolences on the death of his son Timofey Anufriev. This is a huge tragedy for all of us. Secondly, it was thanks to Sergei Anufriev that I got into the art world in the first place, and I will be grateful to him for that for the rest of my life. But thirdly, from the very beginning, and especially later, during the Medhermeneutics period, it was clear to us that we were different people in terms of temperament and attitude to art.

From left to right: Anufriev, Voitsekhov, and Leiderman. PHOTO: Facebook of Yuri Leiderman

Sergei is a specific person, brilliant and windy, he can sometimes disappear from communication. When I can help him to be represented somewhere, for example, to give his works from my own collection to an exhibition, I do it with pleasure. But still, I feel a greater responsibility to those who are no longer with us-Igor Chatskin, Oleg Petrenko, and Lenya Voitsekhov.

In 2014, you called for a boycott of Manifesta in St. Petersburg. How do you feel about the current situation at the Venice Biennale and the existence of the Russian pavilion there?

I treat Russia's presence at the Venice Biennale with absolute rejection and indignation. But as for the protests themselves... It seems to me that what is happening around this pavilion-all these Pussy Riot, girls in balaclavas-is paradoxically working as a PR counterpart for the Putin regime.

When I called for a boycott of Manifesta in 2014, few people responded (only the Polish artist Pawel Altgamer and the Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi supported it). There was another artist from St. Petersburg who also announced a boycott, for some other reasons unrelated to Ukraine. But he literally spent the day and night at Manifesto and chased every journalist around telling them that he was boycotting. This is funny to me, because boycott means total rejection, not a story about how you don't accept it. And in Venice, they organized an event: a disco was running in the pavilion itself, and they were giving away free vodka, while under the pavilion, people in pink balaclavas were beating drums and running around for YouTube videos. In other words, the boycott became entertainment and PR for both sides. This is the world of publicity we live in, but I think this approach is inappropriate.

The Ukrainian work of Zhanna Kadyrova was presented at this biennale.

I really like what Zhanna is doing, both her project "Loaf" made of river stones and this deer...

Zhanna Kadyrova and the Origami Deer sculpture. PHOTO: Facebook/Galleria Continua

Her works are very accurate for our Ukrainian situation, and it is important that they do not have a suffocating, tragic tear. In the photographs, Zhanna stands next to her subjects smiling and dressed in fashion. This is not the position of a weak victim, but of a fighter who realizes her strength. And our inherent sense of humor, which is always our advantage.

You took part in the Republic of Cynics exhibition in Warsaw, where you showed an Odesa installation from the 80s called Ways of Killing with a Flag. Is art really capable of predicting history? What mood of the future do you capture today?

Let's start with the details: it was neither an installation nor a performance (although nowadays these are called big words). In the 80s in Odesa, at Igor Chatskin's apartment, we simply organized a photo shoot. We invited a few spectators and shot six positions of conditional murder with a flag. Two of the photos were lost later, and four remained. When the curator in Warsaw offered me to "reconstruct this performance," I refused - it was nonsense. Instead, I talked about the context of the event and showed these archival images.

"Ways of killing with a flag". IMAGE: Odesa Museum of Contemporary Art

The context of that shooting was really absurd. Our friend, saxophonist Sergei Letov (who, by the way, became a terrible waddler and now lives somewhere in the Crimea), came to Odesa from Moscow. Letov was accustomed to the tumultuous performance life of Moscow's Collective Actions and thought that everything was in full swing in Odesa. But we were quiet, Sergei Anufriev was lying in a mental institution, mowing down from the army. So Chatskin and I had to keep the brand in front of the Muscovites, and we came up with this action with the flag on the fly.

Now this work is often included in Ukrainian national exhibitions-it 's easy to transport, it's just a photo. Back then, we didn't put any direct political meaning into it. The flag was white not because we were afraid of being accused of anti-Sovietism, but because we were interested in the very eidos of the flag, which is paradoxically used as a tool of murder.

But yes, art presupposes history. Just not in the way we imagine it. My colleague Mykyta Kadan expressed a wonderful metaphor: "Artists are blind people searching in the dark." We are all in historical darkness, but artists take the risk of groping. Thanks to this blindness, they develop a special tactile sensitivity of their fingers, and they stumble upon prophecies without realizing it.

For example, in 2011, we filmed what seems to be an absurd episode: people are sitting on a balcony in Odesa, telling stories, and suddenly a man comes out and reads Molotov's speech of June 22, 1941, about Germany's attack on the Soviet Union. But for some reason he reads it in Ukrainian. At the time, it was pure "geopoetics" for me. And now this fragment looks absolutely terrifying.

We are wandering in the surf of history, not realizing where we are until a certain time. We think we are lying on the beach, but it turns out that we are already being carried away by a wave. You realize this only in retrospect.

In the annotation to the work "Composition with Breast and Braids" you say that you tried to paint a portrait of Oleksandr Roitburd dozens of times, but in the end you found this task impossible. What was it about him that resisted portraiture?

"Sasha once made a series of works where he drew faces of different characters-Pushkin, Marat Helman, Shevchenko. And in response, I wanted to portray him with a face. But my portrait abilities are limited. I can make successful portraits only when it comes to the villains of history. I have a portrait of Saddam Hussein in the Wind, portraits of the torn Gaddafi, the shot Ceausescu, and Trotsky killed with an ice pick.

Yuri Leiderman, "Composition with Breast and Braids". IMAGE: arterritory

These characters attract me. They are villains, but also scapegoats, victims of history. This is connected to my reflections on responsibility and determination. For example, Ceausescu was killed, and I think they did the right thing. But if you were given a machine gun and told to kill, would you be able to pull the trigger yourself?

Coming back to Reutburd: I realized that this is not a figure of the same historical scale. That's why the portrait didn't work, and after many repaints it turned into "Composition with Breast and Braids." When local deputies unleashed all the dogs on him because of the museum, we, of course, supported him. But it has to be separated. I am still offended that Sasha is a leading symbol of art in Odesa and Ukraine. It's as offensive as if you ask an ordinary Ukrainian what artist they know and they answer: "Marchuk". I consider most of Roitburd's paintings to be rather vulgar. But the collective consciousness is not controlled.

Is your project possible in Odesa today? And what should it look like?

I have two projects that I have been dreaming of implementing in Odesa for a long time. The first project is related to the famous American artist Philip Guston. He was one of the pillars of abstract expressionism, then unexpectedly returned to figurative painting. But few people know that his parents were immigrants from Odesa who fled the pogroms in 1904-1905. Philip himself was born in Montreal, and the family never spoke Yiddish or Russian. But Gaston always remembered his roots. In the 1970s, he read Isak Babel and Konstantin Paustovsky (The Time of Great Expectations) at the same time that I read them with my school friends in Odesa. He has paintings dedicated to Odesa and "I.B." (Isak Babel - ed.).

Philippe Gaston, "I.B." (1977). IMAGE: Christie's

It is, of course, unrealistic to bring his originals to Odesa-they cost millions of dollars. But it is possible to make an amazing documentary project. Now our Odesa-based researcher Natalka Revko, who is in America, has already contacted the Gaston Heritage Foundation. And Americans are very interested in this, because they know nothing about his Odesa roots. We offer them archival research in Odesa in exchange for their materials.

The second project is related to Pavlo Filonov. Filonov is one of my favorite artists of the twentieth century, at least among Russians. In 1917, he was mobilized to the Romanian front and was stationed in Izmail. After the revolution, he was co-opted to the council of soldiers' deputies. When he was offered to join the Bolshevik Party, he responded with a big phrase: "I can't join your party because I already belong to another party, the Party of World Prosperity, which consists only of me." He was sent to Petrograd to hand over the Czarist flags, and he never returned to the front.

There is an ominous photo from 1917, where Filonov and his comrades are sitting at a table in semi-military jackets under a dim lamp - a pure Stalinist troika passing death sentences. And the Soviet poet Andrei Voznesensky has a little-known poem dedicated to Filonov with the following line: "Give me the death penalty, Commissar Filonov." Here, of course, there is a play on meanings: the highest measure as execution and the highest measure as a spiritual standard.

Pavlo Filonov, second from the right. Izmail, 1917. PHOTO: lit-collider

When I was studying in Odesa at the 119th school (now the First Gymnasium), we had a terrific school Theater of Youth, run by a literature teacher, Yulia Moiseevna Samarova. By the way, many Odesa "gentlemen" came out of this theater, such as Oleh Shkolnik and the late Zhenya Hait. Our theater was modernist: no scenery, only black and red cubes, and we often staged compositions based on Voznesensky's poems. But we never performed this particular poem about Filonov.

I want to gather in Odesa those actors of our school theater who are still alive and ask them, today's elderly people who have gone through all the historical perturbations, to recite this poem. With what intonation will they say it now: "Give me the death penalty, Commissioner Filonov..."?

I see this as an installation of two walls: on one wall there is a huge photo from Izmail in 1917 with Filonov, on the other there is an archival photo of one of our school performances from the 70s, and in the space there is an audio recording of today's reading of these poems by old Odesa student actors.

What is the main illusion of our time and what does freedom mean to you today?

History has treated us so meanly and cruelly that Ukrainians have no illusions left at all. As for freedom... The only thing that matters to me is that Ukraine wins. I don't need any other freedom today.

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Yuri Leiderman: "Victory is the only form of freedom today"

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