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Accidental irony is currently brewing at the Conejo Valley Art Museum.
There, tucked away in its lonely niche at the Janss Mall in Thousand Oaks, the museum is hosting an exhibition of Ukrainian folk art. Examples of costumes, textiles, paintings, ceramics and the ancient indigenous art of pysanky-painting on eggs-add up to a microcosmic vision of a culture that extends back before Jesus and has survived history's abuses up through communism.
A further cry from the mall's parade of merchandise could scarcely be imagined. You proceed past the Toys R Us and step out of time.
Ceramics seen here are part of an evolution dating back to Trypillian "painted ceramics" from the Neolithic age (4,000 to 3,000 BC). Thousands of years later, Ukrainian culture evolved from a complex hybrid of Christian and pagan rituals and ancient and modern artistic, social and political values.
Folk art's innate appeal has only increased in recent times, as the once-hard line between the fine and the folk in art has been blurred. In part, folk art offers a last bastion of innocence and-theoretically, at least-unfettered expression.
But, while we tend to place value on folk art from the Southern Hemisphere and Indonesia, or native territories such as the American South, there is literally a world of folk art waiting to be liberated from the ghetto of the ethnic festival sensibility.
A close inspection of this Ukrainian work is rewarding, especially when it comes...