The exhibition “Thaw” is dedicated to the historical period of the early 1960s, when the Soviet empire—exhausted by World War II—briefly loosened its grip. During this short time, a generation emerged in Ukraine that fundamentally transformed the language of art and the country’s cultural landscape.
The Sixtiers opposed the totalitarian regime with ideas of humanism, the right to creative freedom, and the revival of Ukrainian culture. They became an internal opposition and the foundation of the dissident movement, which ultimately laid the groundwork for Ukraine’s independence. This period brought forth a new type of individual—thoughtful, independent, and unbound by ideological dogma. The artistic language of the time also underwent transformation: artists moved away from the canons of socialist realism and experimented with new movements that penetrated the информаційний простір through the cracks in the Iron Curtain; they turned to the depths of Ukrainian folklore and reinterpreted the legacy of the national avant-garde of the 1920s.
The exhibition features works by key representatives of the Thaw generation, including Opanas Zalyvakha, Alla Horska, Ihor Hryhoriev, Valerii Lamakh, Ernest Kotkov, Vilen Barskyi, Ivan Lytovchenko, Henrietta Levytska, Petro Markovych, Bohdan Soika, Yelyzaveta Kremnytska, and Oleh Sokolov.