We conclude our overview of 2017 with the curatorial project ‘City XA’ by Tetiana Tumasyan and Serhiy Bratkov, presented at the National Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv. The project’s primary goal was to showcase the art of the avant-garde in Kharkiv over the past century, with a particular focus on the role of text, symbols, and signs. These elements were chosen intentionally, as textual and symbolic components have been characteristic of the city’s visual art for many years, with text becoming as integral as colors and lines. The curators traced the development and interconnections of these elements.
The exhibition featured key figures such as the Gosprom building, early 20th-century avant-garde artists (Vasyl Yermilov, Boris Kosarev, the Syniakov sisters), representatives of conceptualism and nonconformism (Vagrich Bakhchanyan, Viktor Goncharov), the Kharkiv School of Photography (Boris Mikhailov, Serhiy Bratkov, Viktor Kotsov, Yevhen Pavlov, Roman Pyatkovka), ‘heirs of the avant-garde’ (Vitaliy Kulikov, Pavlo Makov, Volodymyr Starykov, Oleksiy Borysov), and young contemporary artists from Kharkiv (Roman Minin, Hamlet Zin’kovskyi, Artem Volokitin, Alina Kleitman, Vitaliy Kokhan, Ivan Svetlichny).
The exhibition program was accompanied by theoretical, educational, and discussion platforms. A unique feature of the project was the infographic “Genealogy of the Kharkiv Avant-garde,” a visual object that clearly demonstrated the century-long development of Kharkiv culture along three main vectors: time, events, and people. We invite you to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the project by watching a behind-the-scenes video from the UA:First TV channel.
https://mgallery.kharkov.ua/2001-molodizhni-programmi-municipalnoi-galerei/
