Location: Art Talk Area, Luxembourg Art Week
Language: English
Guest Speakers:
Julia Beliaeva, Visual and Multimedia Artist
Johann König, Gallerist and Founder of KÖNIG GALERIE
Christian Mosar, Director of Konschthal Esch
How can a material associated with refinement and fragility speak of the violence of war? From Kyiv, Julia Beliaeva shapes bodies, faces and buildings in porcelain that seem to have stepped out of the sculpture halls of classical museums or the display cases of the great manufactories. But this beauty is a trap: the mythological figures and folk-tale characters she summons bear the scars of a very real conflict, the one Ukraine has been living through since 2022.
At the crossroads of traditional craftsmanship and digital technologies – 3D scanning and printing, virtual reality – her work asks what remains of an endangered heritage, and what art can still pass on when everything is shaken.
For this conversation, the artist is joined by two people who support her work from different positions: Johann König, founder of KÖNIG GALERIE in Berlin, which represents her, and Christian Mosar, director of Konschthal Esch and curator of her 2026 exhibition White Shadows.
Together, they will look back on the artist's path and on the place of a Ukrainian voice in the European art landscape. They will also discuss the respective roles of the gallery and the institution in bringing to the public a body of work born in a country at war, and the responsibility to show, support and circulate these stories. An encounter between creation, the art market and the institution, to think together about art as a space of memory, resistance and transmission.
Biographies
Julia Beliaeva, Visual and Multimedia Artist. Born in 1988 in Haisyn, in the Vinnytsia region of Ukraine, Julia Beliaeva lives and works in Kyiv. A graduate of the Mykhailo Boychuk Kyiv State Institute of Decorative and Applied Art and Design, she has developed a practice that combines digital technologies – 3D scanning, modelling and printing, virtual reality – with traditional craftsmanship, porcelain above all. Through this material, she reflects on an endangered cultural heritage, in particular that of Ukraine's once-thriving ceramics industry, now lost. Since the Russian invasion of 2022, her work has drawn on classical mythology and folk tales to give form to the reality of war, between suffering and resistance. She is represented by KÖNIG GALERIE, which presented her first solo exhibition with the gallery, Siren and Sirens, in Berlin in 2025. That same year she completed a residency at the Royal Porcelain Manufactory Berlin (KPM). In 2026, Konschthal Esch devoted the exhibition White Shadows to her work. Her work has been shown in Ukraine, Germany, France, Austria, Denmark, Poland, Portugal and the United States.
Johann König, Gallerist and Founder of KÖNIG GALERIE. Born in 1981 in Cologne, Johann König grew up in a family deeply rooted in the art world: he is the son of the curator Kasper König. In 2002, aged 21 and before even finishing school, he opened his own gallery in Berlin. Early on, he exhibited artists who would go on to become established figures on the international scene, such as Jeppe Hein, Tue Greenfort, Michael Sailstorfer and Tatiana Trouvé. Since 2015, the gallery's main space has been the former brutalist church of St. Agnes in Berlin-Kreuzberg, converted into an exhibition venue. Now known as KÖNIG GALERIE, it has grown internationally and represents both emerging and established artists, with a particular focus on younger generations. Its interdisciplinary programme spans sculpture, painting, installation, video, photography and performance. Johann König represents Julia Beliaeva, whose exhibition Siren and Sirens he presented in Berlin in 2025.
Christian Mosar, Director of Konschthal Esch. Born in 1968 in Esch-sur-Alzette, Christian Mosar is an art historian trained at the University of Strasbourg. He first worked as an artist and photographer before turning to criticism, cultural mediation and curating; he also hosted a cultural programme on the radio station 100,7. A key figure on the Luxembourg art scene, he served as artistic director of Esch2022, European Capital of Culture. Since 2020, he has directed Konschthal Esch, a contemporary art centre housed in the former Espace Lavandier and opened to the public in 2021, as well as the Bridderhaus artist residency. There he champions a programme rooted in the questions of our time, fostering dialogue between artists from Luxembourg, the Greater Region and the international scene. In 2026, he curated Julia Beliaeva's exhibition White Shadows at Konschthal.
