The turn of the 20th to the 21st century was marked by a multitude of cultural events worldwide, aimed at summarizing the past century and forecasting the development of culture in the near future. The Municipal Gallery (MG) initiated the “Art on the Edge of Centuries” festival, a story about which opens our series of posts about 2000.

The first festival was titled “Surrealism: A Look into the 21st Century,” and visual arts dominated: painting, graphics, sculpture, art photography, and art design. Artists from Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Kyiv participated in the exhibition program, which took place at four venues in the city, one of which was the MG.

At the Municipal Gallery, an exhibition of painting, graphics, and sculpture was prepared, featuring nine artists: Leonid Bernat, Oleksandr Vlasenko, Volodymyr Melnyk, Oleksandr Ridnyy, Serhiy Sbitnyev, Vitaliy Smakhtin, Alfred Tanypeter, Serhiy Uvarov, and Serhiy Khangaldyan. Simultaneously, the “Salvador Dali Theatre-Museum in Figueres” project was screened at the Kino Palace (on the small stage of the Kharkiv National Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet). The audience could see three video versions of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali’s film “An Andalusian Dog.” The project was authored by Volodymyr Filippov with the participation of Kharkiv sculptors Lyudmyla and Felix Betliemsky.

A week after the festival started, the opening took place at the third location – the “Maestro” gallery presented the project of the Kharkiv Organization of the Union of Designers of Ukraine “Time and Things”.

The exhibition expositions of the festival were accompanied by a Christmas concert and theatrical program.

“Art on the Edge of Centuries” was planned as an annual festival for 10 years, but unfortunately, it only took place twice: in 2002 with the theme “Abstraction and the Search for Patterns.” An interesting fact: the sculptor Serhiy Sbitnyev made a bronze cup for the festival, the first owners of which were Vitaliy Smakhtin and Oleksandr Ridnyy.

https://mgallery.kharkov.ua/2000-festyval-mystetstvo-na-mezhi-stolit/