The historic Belfry of Bruges has hosted the opening of Habitus, a contemporary art exhibition bringing together seven Ukrainian artists whose work spans the late Soviet period, the years of independence and the current full-scale war.
The project is conceived by curator Vitaliy Adlermann, with Kateryna Ray as co-curator, and is presented in partnership with AIDA – the charitable foundation of Havas Village Ukraine – the Vivid Fusion Foundation, the Cultural Center of Ukraine in Belgium and Meancult Gallery.
According to the exhibition text, “habitus” – from the Latin habitus – is understood as a set of acquired schemes of perception, thinking and action that are internalised through upbringing and socialisation. It is shaped by family, friends, the workplace, political parties and society at large, and marks the field in which relationships of life and death, friendship and hatred, love and indifference, strength and fragility are formed. The curators connect this to Aristotle’s observation that “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
Habitus presents works by Oleh Tistol, Mykola Matsenko, Maryna Skugareva, Andrii Zelinskyi, the late Dmytro Shevchenko, Vinny Reunov and Yana Bestrova. Together they form a closely linked circle that entered the wider European art scene even before Ukraine’s independence and has continued to work through political upheavals and war. The exhibition focuses on how these artists have organised themselves, formed long-term relationships and maintained dialogue, rather than on a chronological survey of movements or styles.
The curatorial framework recalls the 1969 exhibition When Attitudes Become Form: Concepts, Processes, Situations, Information, organised by Swiss curator Harald Szeemann, which systematised the work of 69 artists and highlighted the potential of conceptual practices at the time. In Bruges, the reference serves as a point of comparison. While Szeemann’s project was “purely curatorial”, the organisers of Habitus emphasise the “organic and spontaneous self-organisation of artists in times of epochal change – two revolutions and a full-scale war”, and the forms of solidarity that arise between them.
The objects on display range from paintings and graphic works to painted tin cans, pieces of corrugated cardboard, collages, printouts from old blogs and other everyday items. These are presented as “artefacts of human relationships”, intended to open an “infinite horizon of perception” and to show what the organisers describe as the elegance of material embodiment. The exhibition text quotes Hannah Arendt’s statement that “the world between people arises wherever they act together”, placing the project within a wider reflection on how shared action produces a common public space.
A further layer is provided by the “Unified Cultural Field”, a theory developed by artist and contemporary art researcher Andrii Zelinskyi, one of the participants. In the curators’ view, this approach treats artistic and social activity as taking place within a single interconnected field, irrespective of national borders. The project also cites Pierre Bourdieu’s definition of habitus as “history turned into nature”, highlighting the way patterns of behaviour and perception become embedded and appear self-evident over time.
Oleg Tistol (source: Craft Magazine)
Within this framework, each artist occupies a distinct position. Oleh Tistol, born in 1960 in southern Ukraine, is associated with Ukrainian neo-baroque and the “New Ukrainian Wave”. His work often engages with national symbols, stereotypes and the visual language of propaganda, reworking them through bright colour and decorative pattern.
Mykola Matsenko
Mykola Matsenko, a painter and graphic artist of the same generation, has long explored historical iconography and everyday motifs, frequently in collaboration with Tistol; together they founded the “Natsprom” group devoted to re-examining national clichés in the early 1990s.
Marina Skugareva
Maryna Skugareva, also active since the late Soviet period, is linked to the Ukrainian New Wave and is known for detailed, often intimate paintings that draw on textile structures, the human body and domestic space, connecting traditional techniques with postmodern sensibilities.
Andrii Zelinskyi contributes both as an artist and as the author of the “Unified Cultural Field” concept; his works in Habitus include assemblages described by the curators as “survival kits” and “evolution kits”, reflecting on resilience and adaptation.
The exhibition also includes a posthumous presentation of works by painter Dmytro Shevchenko (1978–2025), whose canvases represent a younger generation that came of age around the turn of the millennium.
Vinny Reunov, born in 1963, has built a career that moves between Kyiv and London; his practice deliberately balances on the boundary between mass and elite culture, making use of media imagery and the aesthetics of advertising.
Yana Bestrova, a third-generation artist from Kyiv who has lived between Paris, New York and Kyiv since the early 1990s, has shifted from figurative work towards abstract and semi-abstract painting, with a strong emphasis on colour and the ambiguity of perception.
EU Today interview with Habitus curators
Speaking to EU Today at the opening, Adlermann explained that the selection followed “a really deep research of Ukrainian art projects from the last three years”, beginning with the full-scale invasion. Rather than concentrating on immediate frontline images, the curators, in his words, “took everything which means modern Ukraine”, from dismantled monuments to still lifes and scenes of ordinary life. Ray noted that the works in Habitus “are not only from 2024 or 2022” but “begin from the late 1970s”, and that together they trace how attitudes to life, faith, politics and the land have evolved.
The opening in Bruges carried a diplomatic and community dimension. It was attended by the Ambassador of Ukraine to the Kingdom of Belgium, Yaroslav Melnyk; the Embassy’s Cultural Attaché, Kateryna Bilotil; the Mayor of Bruges, Dirk De fauw; Bruges Alderman for Culture, Nico Blontrock; members of “Fifty-One International Brugge”; and a large Ukrainian diaspora drawn from several countries. In his address, Ambassador Melnyk linked the exhibition to events at the front, stating that Ukrainian soldiers are defending not only national borders but also values shared with Europe, including democracy, creativity and freedom of speech.
By situating Ukrainian contemporary art in the medieval setting of the Belfry of Bruges and bringing together artists, diplomats, local officials and the Ukrainian community, Habitus presents artistic practice as both a record of and a tool for understanding human relations during a period of profound historical change.
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