On April 5 at 5:00 PM, the Odesa Museum of Modern Art will launch the exhibition project “Ode to Sonia”, dedicated to the Odessa-born artist Sonia Delaunay, one of the key figures of the global avant-garde. The exhibition will run until August 31, 2026.
This is the first large-scale exhibition about Delaunay in her hometown, marking 140 years since her birth and restoring her name to the local cultural context. Rather than “bringing” Delaunay to Odessa, the project explores how her ideas continue to resonate in the practices of contemporary artists today.
In addition to six works by Sonia Delaunay from the Vadim Morokhovsky collection, the exhibition features pieces created specifically for the project, responding directly to her approach and artistic thinking. The local art scene enters into dialogue with the global legacy of Delaunay—not merely illustrating it, but extending it.
A special component of the project is an open poster contest inspired by Delaunay’s neon posters of the 1920s, which engaged more than 30 Odessa artists. The exhibition spans painting, ceramics, fashion, sculpture, and audiovisual installations. This multidisciplinary approach is not merely stylistic but reflects Delaunay’s own practice of dismantling hierarchies between artistic media.
Over 20 contemporary artists participate in the exhibition, including Kateryna Biletina, Maria Honchar, Maryna Divakova, Dmytro Erlich, Valeria Yeromenko, Olena Zhernova, Anastasiia Kyrylina, KIT, Yana Kushnir, Oleksandra Lutsenko, Viktoriia Morgunova, Tetiana Nesterenko, Françoise Oz, Illia Petrov, Mykhailo Reva, Anna Rusnak, Sofia Sapiga, Anna Topal, Volodymyr Umanenko, Kateryna Chernyshova, Yelyzaveta Shyrokova, and Hanna Yarova.
The project is curated by Anna Morokhovska and Andrii Sihuntsov, with the curatorial team including Yuliia Manukian, Tetiana Nesterenko, and Volodymyr Umanenko. Historical research for the exhibition was prepared by Yevhen Demenok.
“Ode to Sonia” is presented with the support of the Ambassadors of Culture (patrons of the Odesa Museum of Modern Art) and in cooperation with the French Institute in Ukraine and the Honorary Consul of the French Republic in Odesa.
