ART IN TIMES OF ANXIETY
19.11.2026 from 18:00 to 20:00
Zhanna Kadyrova in conversation with Marcella Beccaria
Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, 19 November 2026, 6 pm
An artist whose works have been part of the Castello di Rivoli Collection since 2024, Zhanna Kadyrova is also representing Ukraine at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026.
In conversation with Marcella Beccaria, Deputy Director of the Castello, Kadyrova will explore the development of her artistic practice in a context marked by violence, war and uncertainty.
The artist will discuss the origins of some of her major projects, including Anxiety and Palianytsia, both currently on view at the Museum. Palianytsia consists of a table laid with stones which, already smoothed by the waters of the Carpathian rivers, have been further carved into the most familiar shapes of bread eaten in Ukraine. As the artist explains: “At the beginning of the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine, the word ‘palianytsia’ became a symbol, as the occupiers are unable to pronounce it correctly.”
The conversation will take place in Ukrainian, English and Italian, with facilitation and interpretation by Sergey Kantsedal, a curator based in Turin.
Admission is free upon registration at the following link: https://ZhannaKadyrova_CastellodiRivoli.eventbrite.it
With thanks to Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Beijing, Les Moulins, Habana, Roma, São Paulo and Paris.
Image:
Palianytsia (Poland) (Pane – Polonia / Bread – Poland), 2022
Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino
on loan from Fondazione Arte CRT, 2024
Zhanna Kadyrova
Zhanna Kadyrova (Brovary, Ukraine, 1981) was a member of the Revolutionary Experimental Space (R.E.P.) collective. She graduated from the Taras Shevchenko State Art School, specialising in sculpture, and has received numerous awards, including the Kazimir Malevich Art Award (2012) and the Grand Prix of the Kyiv Sculpture Project. She has also received several awards from the PinchukArtCentre: the Special Prize (2011), the Main Prize (2013) and the Special Prize – Future Generation International (2014). In 2025, she received the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine for Visual Arts and the Her Art Prize, dedicated to international women artists.
Kadyrova held her first major retrospective at the Kunstverein Hannover, Germany, in 2023. In the same year, another major exhibition, Flying Trajectories, was presented at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv. In 2024, she took part in From Ukraine: Dare to Dream, an exhibition curated by the PinchukArtCentre as a Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.
In 2024, her exhibition Unexpected, at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague, Czech Republic, was included by Frieze magazine among the “10 best exhibitions in Europe in 2024”. In 2025, she participated in BIAM, the Medellín and Antioquia Biennial in Colombia, and presented a major solo exhibition at Galeria Arsenal in Białystok, Poland. In 2026, she was selected to represent Ukraine in the national pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.