A significant event of 1997 was the project “Local Landmarks” by Oleksandr Ridny and Pavlo Makov. This project-utopia, a kind of social order, was a timely one, as despite the passage of time, the concept of “local memory” and its derivative “local landmark” continues to intrigue people.

The project’s authors conducted a small survey on the streets of Kharkiv, using the examples of Rudnev, Kotlov, Skrypnik, and Sverdlov monuments. Almost half of the survey participants, 150 people, even as adults, did not know who these people were. The ocean of facts and legends, family chronicles that filled this place, became the basis of the local myth.

The project aims to challenge common sense and make the viewer see the familiar place with a different perspective. Almost everything in it – from the metro to an ordinary sandbox – is a local landmark. “This is a place, from which,” as the project’s authors say, “one often really wants to leave, to sincerely forget and abandon. But it is difficult not to love it, despite everything, because there is nothing to look at.”

Makov and Ridny worked on creating their “local myth, parallel to the state one,” in a kind of “vacuum of mythological space” and embodied it through various artistic means. At the exhibition, they presented sculptures, drawings, etchings, author’s essays, and television interviews.

Within the framework of the project, there were also meetings with the authors: a presentation of the book by P. Makov and Bess Joslow (USA) “Fountain of Exhaustion. April Wars” and a public lecture-discussion by O. Ridny “From A to Z”.

Both artists are recognized in the country and abroad and are participants in prestigious art forums and holders of many prestigious awards. In 1997, at the International Art Festival, Pavlo Makov was named the best graphic artist of the year, and Oleksandr Ridny – the best sculptor (he received the “Golden Section” award for the project “Unsurpassed Landscape” presented at the festival jointly with the Municipal Gallery, which we will discuss in the next post).

https://mgallery.kharkov.ua/1997-oleksandr-ridnyi-ta-pavel-makov-mistsevi-pam-iatky/