What’s a Critic Doing in a War Zone?

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A news organization needs all sorts of journalists and professionals to cover a war zone effectively: reporters and photographers who can gather information, local journalists and interpreters to gain access to sources, security experts and drivers to help everyone stay safe. One person you almost never need is a critic.

Yet I spent several weeks this July in Ukraine, leaving behind my usual bailiwick of art galleries and biennials to look head-on at military conflict and humanitarian crisis. As one of The New York Times’s critics at large, my job is to help readers understand culture against wider backdrops of history, politics, cities and climate. And this era-defining war is, at its core, a culture war: an imperial incursion buttressed by misrepresentations of history, language and religion.

So I headed to Kyiv — one of the most artistically vibrant cities in Europe, its avenues now punctuated by military checkpoints — to survey its museums and monasteries, to interview its artists and archivists, and to check on the capital’s fabled nightclubs. I also traveled to several mangled towns north of Kyiv, carefully navigating the ruins of blasted heritage sites, and reported from Lviv, the handsome Hapsburg city in the west of Ukraine, where many of the country’s cultural preservation initiatives have been masterminded.

Two weeks ago, The Times published my first Critic’s Notebook from Kyiv, which examined the cultural stakes of the war, and on Thursday, an essay on the function and importance of art in times of extreme distress, grounded in Ukraine but stretching back to 17th-century Flanders.

My trip to Ukraine came about through an alliance of the paper’s Culture and International desks. I started to get serious about going in late April, after the Ukrainians repelled Russia’s attempted siege of the capital. And after discussing it with my colleagues in Culture, I learned that Michael Slackman, The Times’s assistant managing editor for International, was also eager to scrutinize the cultural dimensions of this conflict.

Before I could go, I had to undertake security training, where I learned how to stay calm if you’re kidnapped, or what to do if a grenade is lobbed your way. (Scream “Grenade!” and drop to the ground, feet facing the blast.) I crossed the border with a combat helmet and Kevlar vest alongside a Venice Biennale tote bag.