The MA*GA Museum is hosting the first solo exhibition by the artist of the Ukrainian origins Oksana Mas to be held in an Italian museum. The museum has worked on this project with the Heritage Art Foundation with the aim of showcasing the studies of an artist who has carefully worked around themes associated with the history of Italian art and culture.The central idea behind the exhibition is that a city is a space that projects art, politics, social issues, and aesthetics. This city is revealed via a series of paintings and installations that open a dialogue with works from the museum’s collection, developing a space of dialogue among different cultures, and artistic languages.

Sandrina Bandera, who curated the exhibition with Kristina Krasnyanskaya, emphasised that:“We can draw a comparison between the works of Oksana Mas and the aesthetical vision of some of the fathers of 20th century critique, such as Mumford, Lynch, Argan and Olsen, who in their urban writings reached the same aesthetical emotion contrary to the most common positivist mentality even though they had started from very different premises. In contrast to the Modern Movement, they viewed the polis as a work of art that meets metaphysical needs rather than widespread network of roads. In keeping with this critical trend, the work of Oksana Mas appears as an expression of values that are without doubt similar to this metaphysical model as in the black-and-white counterpoints her attempt to go beyond the unbending metaphysical models is undeniable by using a more current system of relations, contradistinctions, negative/positive effects and continual flow.”

Kristina Krasnyanskaya commented on the project: “The "Spiritual cities" exhibition is dedicated to landmarks in the global research of individual person, modern society and their interconnections undertaken by Oksana Mas. While conceiving this showcase Oksana questioned herself and the audience “What are spiritual grounds of modern society? Is there a room for transformation to a modern individual? What is the position of religion today? How does technical progress shape our minds and our future?”. The world is changing fast and Oksana suggests to evaluate the vector of these shifts through artistic optics”.

Oksana Mas (1969, Ukraine) lives and works in Spain. In 201l she represented Ukraine at 54th Biennale di Venezia. In 2012 Oksana Mas won the Independent Critics Prize at 65th Locarno International Film Festival. Among her recent exhibitions stand out solo shows in ArtFactory, Istanbul (2015); Kasteev State Museum of Art, Kazakhstan (2014), “MAS” in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2008) and group shows such as Women and Art Biennale at Sharjah Art Museum (2014) and in 2013 in Venice at Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Arti e Lettere on occasion of the exhibition Glasstress and Modus R. Russian Formalism Today, Art Basel Miami non-commercial program(2006).

Her works are part of the collection of: Moscow Museum of Modern Art, BREUS Foundation, Stella Art Foundation, Capital Group Art Foundation, Ekaterina Foundation, Victor Bondarenko collection, Victor Pinchuk Foundation.