9 facts to be known about Sergei Sviatchenko

26

May

2018

Talented, original, and quite bold. An architect, collage artist, painter, photographer, designer, curator Sergei Sviatchenko is known now to the whole world. He was born in Ukraine but became internationally known in Denmark. The artist's development in such a kind of contemporary art as a collage is unique. By the way, these days one had an opportunity to see them within the International Art Festival Kyiv Art Week. The festival is still taking place, so one can see these extraordinary works in the capital's complex Toronto-Kyiv.

Why is Sviatchenko worth talking about? What is he so famous for? Here are 9 facts that will convince you of this ...

1. Sergei Sviatchenko can be called the founder of contemporary Ukrainian art.

It was for his assistance as an organizer and curator in Soviet Ukraine that the first exhibitions of contemporary art took place, namely “Kyiv – Tallinn” (1987), the first Soviet-American joint exhibition "Let’s create the world of art together", Kyiv (1988), "Flash. The New Generation of Ukrainian Art", Kyiv (1990), and others. At that time, he headed the centre for contemporary art "Soviart" and was its art director.

2. Monumental, picturesque, collage works and photographs of Sviatchenko adorn the well-known buildings of Denmark and not only.

In particular, it is a Nokia's headquarters in Copenhagen, the University of Aalborg, the new central office of Jyske Bank in Silkeborg, the dental clinics and real estate companies in Viborg, and even the football academy in Herning, a stadium in Viborg, the Danisco office in Chinese Kunshan and numerous other public institutions. As well, his works adorn the Danish parliament and the royal court. By the way, in 1993, the Danish Parliament adopted an unprecedented decision – to grant Sviatchenko and his family the right of permanent residence and work, taking into account the contribution of the artist to the cultural and artistic life of the country. 

3. The creativity of Sviatchenko marked by international institutions in the field of art.

He is the laureate of the International Award for the Yellow Pencil Award 2007 (London) – an Oscar equivalent in the design industry, as well as three times (2009, 2012, 2013) the winner of the prestigious IPA International Photography Award (LUCIES) (Los Angeles). In addition, the artist won the CATURE THE FADE Prize in Sydney, a multi-year Australian art contest.  

4. The founder of his own art direction – a collage under the title "Less-collage".

The works consist of only two or three elements on a bright, distinct background. Less-collage arose as a reaction to multi-fragmentary, "overloaded" compositions in classical and modern collages. The uniqueness of Less-Collages is that the selected images have sharp and significant clipping, and the number of elements is deliberately minimized to two or three. Unusually bright coloured backgrounds (Less colours) provide images with dimension, and flat shapes – underlined relief. "I deliberately limit the number of elements strictly, and pure saturated paints, filling the background space for fragments of collage design, do not obscure the image, but rather make them visually more convex," Sergei Sviatchenko shared his opinion.

5. The surname of Sviatchenko is included into the rating of the most famous collagists of the world.

British critic of visual art Rick Poynor in his publications called the artist one of the most prominent contemporary collage artist. The New York edition The Wild Magazine and the German publishing house Gestalten say that ‘... Sergei Sviatchenko is perhaps the most influential collagist of our time’

To all, Sviatchenko participated in the large collective exhibition International Weird Collage Show, which was held in February 2018 in London. It featured the outstanding names of a modern collage, such as Sarah Hadakr, Ashkan Honevar, Lola Dupre and others. Among them, there was Sergei Sviatchenko. "The collage legend Sergei Sviatchenko, who lives in Denmark, answered our questions before joining the London exhibition. We are proud that he is participating in our show", Weird Collage Show wrote on its Facebook page. Do you know why? "I am not young," Sergei says. “I’ve been working with collage since 1983. And there are not so many people in the world who would consistently work in this direction. Now there are a lot of young talented artists aged 25-40 who are engaged in collage but they are still young and just start their career," he said.

6. Sviatchenko created a series of collages for the world-famous Cartier jewellery house.

Representatives of the world-famous Cartier jewellery house, after seeing Sviatchenko's works in the Stiletto magazine, invited him to create collages for the All About Cartier Diamonds anniversary edition, which tells about the brightest moments in the long history of the Cartier diamonds.

7. Sviatchenko's film received a prize at the film festival in Italy.

The collagist is extremely enthusiastic about the art of a filmmaker Andrii Tarkovskyi and he is the author of the artistic collage project "Mirror by Mirror" and a short film created jointly with the Japanese-English artist Noriko Okaku "Mirror by Mirror" dedicated to the great filmmaker. The film has received the first prize at the film festival of experimental films in Lucca, Italy. According to S. Sviatchenko, without a sense of Tarkovskyi's creativity, he would not have been an artist.

8. Sergei Sviatchenko recognized as the most stylish man in Denmark and the founder of a new style in contemporary photography of fashion.

He is also the founder of a new trend in fashion. Twice during the last few years, Sergei Sviatchenko was recognized as "the most stylish man in Denmark" – according to the results of the readers' and editorial reviews of the Euroman edition. Sergei Sviatchenko is the founder of his own photographic art project Close Up and Private - site closeupandprivate.com and a printed publication whose focus is on the details of the world that surrounds us as a key to understanding the style. For the project, Sviatchenko prescribed some rules of etiquette for the modern "dandy", in particular, mandatory wearing of Ray-Ban glasses, regular listening to The Beatles and good relations with parents. 

9. Sviatchenko is the owner of a unique gallery.  

In 2002-2009 in Denmark, the artist organized a non-profit gallery SENKO, where he curated expositions of the most entertaining and talented young artists, photographers and video artists from all over the world. For 7 years SENKO hosted 72 exhibitions. Interestingly, the gallery's facade was completely transparent so that viewers could view the exhibition without even going into the middle. Since 2005, he oversees an international collage project – the master class "Play Face" (Play Face).

Text: Denys Fazekash, Oleksandr Nikitchuk.  The digest is prepared on the basis of open source information.
Photo: from the archive of Sergei Sviatchenko
© Art & Culture Foundation Brovdi Art