M17 Contemporary Art Center launches a new research project called “PROсollections”, which aims to analyze the phenomenon and history of collecting, as well as identify the value of private initiatives in supporting and developing artistic processes in today’s Ukraine, in historical terms and in the present time. ArtCult Foundation is the partner of the event.

The world would not have known Botticelli’s “Spring” if it hadn’t been commissioned by Lorenzo Medici. Young Jackson Pollock was spotted by Peggy Guggenheim who awarded him a scholarship and who later opened a separate gallery-museum to display the works of abstract artists. Mykhailo Boychuk, who eventually started the whole school of Ukrainian monumental studies, studied in France at the expense of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, and received a huge motivation for all his further activities. The museum, created and maintained by Sheptytsky, carefully kept Boychuk’s writings and works, whose art Soviet power wished to erase Soviet from history.

Many young future masters got a chance to make an artistic career because influential patrons believed in their talent and perspective. Many masterpieces have been saved from destruction and oblivion due to the collecting practices of the latter.

So, who influenced the “picture” of Ukrainian art as it is today? And what are the hypostases that are combined in the figure of a collector?

We invite you to become a part of PROcollections project by expressing your opinion!

If you are an artist, art manager, art expert, collector or just a connoisseur of art, go through our “PRO: Survey”.

The analyzed and summarized results of the surveys will be published and presented in the framework of professional discussions, public discussions and further exhibition projects of M17 Contemporary Art Center.

Interesting discoveries made during the study will be highlighted on M17 social media.