Kostiantyn Doroshenko/Tie2.lt

The Museum of Odesa Modern Art (MoOMA) was founded in 2008 (https://msio.com.ua/en/home-en/). It is one of the oldest and most prestigious private museum institutions established in Ukraine after the country regained its independence. The museum’s collection spans the period from the first quarter of the twentieth century to the present day. Its focus on Odesa gives the museum a global dimension, as artists from Odesa have influenced the development and perception of art across continents.

Anna Morokhovska, curator of the Museum of Odesa Modern Art (MSMO), is a prominent representative of a generation whose creative practice has been shaped under the conditions of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. Morokhovska is unafraid to make difficult decisions and to speak about what she considers important, in the way she believes it should be expressed, while remaining deeply sensitive to the experiences and worldviews of others. Her ability to engage with artists is informed not only by her curatorial practice but also by her studies in Experimental Art at the University of Arts Linz and in Film Directing at the Ivan Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television. Experimentation defines her curatorial approach: some of her projects continue to evolve and transform even while they are on display.

It has now been a year since the Museum of Odesa Modern Art moved into its new premises in the heart of Odesa. The opening of this space sent an important message to Ukraine and to the world: that war is incapable of extinguishing Odesa’s cultural life or its dignity. What has changed with the museum’s new address, and what has remained the same?

Unfortunately, the greatest change is one shared by many museums in Ukraine today: the absence of a permanent exhibition. Because of the security situation, we have had to place our collection in storage and focus above all on its preservation. At the same time, these circumstances have encouraged us to devote greater attention to contemporary art and to urgent issues of the present. This shift is clearly reflected in the museum’s exhibition programme over the past few years.

We work with both established and emerging artists, presenting their reflections on contemporary reality, their experiments, and new forms of artistic expression. Despite the change of location and working conditions, the museum’s essential mission remains the same: to be a living cultural institution that responds to its own time while preserving its connection to the history of Odesa’s art. In a sense, the museum, like Ukrainian society as a whole, is learning to live within a new reality—to adapt to it and discover new opportunities for growth, even after losing the familiar ways in which it once operated.

Your father, Vadym Morokhovskyi, founded the Museum of Odesa Modern Art, so you grew up surrounded by visual art. Do your family’s interests and relationships influence your work as a curator? Do you usually share the same vision for the institution, or do you find yourselves disagreeing?

In general, my father does not have a direct influence on the museum’s work. His most important contributions are founding the museum, providing financial support, and trusting the team. Only when projects involve works from the 1960s or examples of early modernism from his personal collection does he occasionally—though never insistently—share his opinion.

Like every member of our curatorial team, I have my own professional position, which may or may not coincide with those of my colleagues. However, our shared goal—the development of Odesa’s art and culture—is always more important than individual preferences. That is why we strive to find solutions that are the most appropriate for each particular project and for the institution as a whole.

For a curator, having a clearly defined personal position is essential, because it is precisely this that makes genuine dialogue with different forms of artistic expression possible. Someone without their own point of view finds it much more difficult not only to argue, but also to understand the perspective of another person.

Not every artwork or artistic method resonates with me personally—and that is perfectly natural. In fact, those moments often become the most interesting part of my work: trying to understand why a particular artistic position creates a sense of distance or disagreement in me. It is not enough simply to say, “I don’t like it.” Instead, I need to analyse my own reaction, understand its origins, and relate it to the context of the work and the artist’s creative logic.

For me, curatorial practice is therefore not only about supporting ideas that feel close to my own, but also about engaging with artistic positions that are challenging or even alien. And it is precisely a clear personal standpoint that makes such understanding possible.

Unfortunately, very few works by internationally renowned artists who were born and creatively shaped in Ukraine have remained in the country. One such figure is Odesa-born Sonia Delaunay. Your project ,,Ode to Sonia” offers an engaging way of representing the artist and her legacy—through interpretations and creative tributes by emerging contemporary artists. How did you select the participants for the exhibition? What new perspectives does the exhibition offer on Sonia Delaunay and her artistic legacy?

We spent a year developing ,,Ode to Sonia”, and it remained on view for another year, during which time it underwent several transformations. Marking the 140th anniversary of Sonia Delaunay’s birth, our main objective was to reconnect her with Odesa, the city where she was born. Despite her immense importance to twentieth-century art, her name remains surprisingly little known in the local context.

At the same time, the breadth of her practice and its remarkable multimedia character make it almost impossible to encompass within a single exhibition. For this reason, we repeatedly reconsidered the project: we changed its structure, revised individual sections, expanded some elements, and abandoned others. At a certain point, we realised that the essential task was not to present everything, but to find the most meaningful way of speaking about her legacy today.

The exhibition ultimately took shape around three thematic sections: Colour in Form: Ceramics, Colour in Motion: Fashion, and City of Light: Poster Competition. The selection process differed according to the nature of each section. For City of Light, the museum organised an open competition for the exhibition’s main poster, which was required to incorporate neon, and an independent jury selected the finalists. The participants in the other sections were chosen by the curatorial team.

It was important to us not to create an exhibition of literal tributes or direct quotations from Delaunay’s work, but rather to present artists whose practices naturally embody principles that were central to her own—colour, rhythm, form, ornament, multimedia experimentation, and the integration of art into everyday life.

I believe the project invites audiences to see Sonia Delaunay not only as a historical figure of the avant-garde, but also as an artist whose visual language continues to shape contemporary artistic practice. These contemporary interpretations demonstrate just how relevant her ideas remain, even more than a century after they first emerged.

Are you more interested in working with emerging artists—your own generation—or with established figures who already occupy an important place in the history of contemporary Ukrainian art, such as Igor Gusev?

What interests me above all is not an artist’s age or professional status, but their ideas and way of thinking. For that reason, I do not see any fundamental distinction between working with emerging artists and with those who have already secured their place in the history of contemporary art. What matters far more is an artist’s inner freedom, their willingness to take risks, and their ability to engage with urgent themes and new forms of expression.

Igor Gusev is a very telling example in this respect. Despite his established reputation, working with him was an exceptionally dynamic and open-ended process. I believe that, in terms of the boldness of his artistic decisions, he can easily compete with much younger artists. This was particularly evident in his projects Lesia UA and Kartoteka, which we presented at MSMO last year. Both combined irony, social sensitivity, and visual experimentation.

At the same time, it is often younger artists who allow themselves the most radical forms of engagement with exhibition spaces and institutions. One such example was KIT’s project Sediments. During the exhibition, we effectively transformed one of the museum’s galleries into the artist’s studio—a chaotic, unfinished, constantly evolving space in which the work was created throughout the exhibition period. For me, this was an important experience because, in such a case, the museum ceases to be merely a place for displaying finished works and instead becomes part of the creative process itself. Visitors witness not only the final result but also the environment in which it comes into being.

It is equally fascinating to bring together emerging artists and established masters in shared experiments, as we did in Kristina Melnyk’s first solo exhibition in Odesa, ,,That Which Holds Silence Within”.

In 2024, MSMO presented the exhibition ,,Our Ship is a Corsair Schooner” at the National Museum of 21st Century Arts (MAXXI) in Rome. The project was dedicated to Odesa video art. What is its phenomenon, and how was the exhibition received in Italy?

For us, an important indicator was the reaction of the MAXXI institution itself. The museum was genuinely interested in the project and responded positively to the exhibition to such an extent that it even expressed its readiness for further collaboration.

The phenomenon of Odesa video art is largely connected to the context in which it developed. Under conditions of limited resources, artists of the 1990s and 2000s were searching for new forms of expression, and video became one of the most contemporary and radical media available to them. A particularly important moment came when video works began to evolve into video installations, engaging not only with the image itself but also with space.

At the same time, it is important to understand that for many Odesa artists of that period, video art was not simply one artistic direction among others, but effectively embodied contemporary art itself. Due to limited access to information, technical resources, and the international art context, this medium was perceived as the most advanced and experimental form of expression. Within video art, artists often allowed themselves maximum freedom—both formal and conceptual.

This sense of freedom became one of the defining features of Odesa video art: an openness to experimentation, a combination of irony and personal tone, and a continuous search for a new artistic language.