This week is dedicated to reminiscing about the projects of 2020. We kick off the “25 Impactful Weeks” campaign with the exhibition “We Are Born to Make Kafka Real” – a retrospective project on the legacy of Vagrich Bakhchanyan (1938–2009).

Since 2016, the Municipal Gallery has been conducting a historical and educational campaign to “bring back” Vagrich Bakhchanyan to his homeland. An artist renowned for his collages, which became a prominent phenomenon of Soviet art, Bakhchanyan was also a poet, aphorist, punster, and the initiator of the informal exhibition in the Sumskaya courtyard – the first unauthorized exhibition in the USSR, preceding the Odessa exhibition by two years and the Bulldozer exhibition by nine years.

Vagrich Bakhchanyan was a “satirical commentator of the era,” an artist of words whose statements remain relevant today and aptly reflect the surreal nature of our contemporary life.

Despite quarantine restrictions, the Kharkiv audience had the opportunity to visit a documentary exhibition that showcased the legacy of an artist well-known abroad but underappreciated by the Ukrainian public.

We invite you to view collages of photographs from the exhibition, “walk” through the exhibit to the “Joke” by Johann Sebastian Bach, and watch Elena Grigorieva’s film about Kharkiv’s BACH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S732G3XHbY