The renovated entrance hall of the Art Museum was unveiled in Odesa

The Odessa National Art Museum has opened a renovated exhibition space and an exhibition in the underground grotto. Visitors were taken on a journey through the building’s centuries-long history, from the late 18th century to the present day.

This was reportedby the press service of the Odesa City Council. 

As part of the exhibition, surviving sections of the palace’s facade and interior decoration—which were damaged by a rocket strike in 2023—were put on display. They have been preserved for future full restoration.

Detailed 3D models of the building have been installed in the halls, illustrating its architectural transformations over more than a century. The museum also features interactive panels with archival documents, drawings, maps of Odesa, and English translations of curatorial texts.

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A special site-specific installation by artists Dmytro Erlich and Illia Petrov has been installed directly in the tunnels and the grotto’s cave. It reimagines the underground space through sound.

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The underground grotto of the Odessa National Art Museum is an artificial cave with tunnels beneath the Potocki-Naryshkin Palace. It is believed that the project was designed by the renowned architect Alexander Bernardazzi. He transformed part of the catacombs into a grotto for an exhibition in 1895. The underground space was designed based on motifs from Dante’s *Divine Comedy* as a metaphorical journey through the underworld toward purification.

Юлія Калабайда