Victor Sydorenko
Victor Sydorenko (Russian: Сидоренко Виктор Дмитриевич, born on 31 December 1953 in Taldy-Kurgan, Kazakhstan, then part of the USSR) is a painter, curator, teacher, an author of objects and photocompositions and also scientific and publicistic texts. Since 1997 he is the member and the vice-president of Ukrainian Academy of Arts. In 2001 Sydorenko has founded and has headed Modern Art Research Institute of Ukraine.
Biography
Victor was born in a family subjected to repression by Joseph Stalin's regime. At the age of 8 he took an interest in the painting, at the age of 10 - in the photography.
After completing his secondary education and doing his military service Sydorenko entered Kharkov Art-Industrial Institute (the Kharkov State Academy of Design and Arts) from which in 1979 he graduated with the degree with distinction. The student of the professor, the winner of The USSR State Prize, B.Kosarev, in 1981 he became the post-graduate student of the creative workshops of the Art School of the USSR. (The supervisor of studies – the academician, the professor, the member of Academy of arts of the USSR, the Winner of The USSR State Prize, S.Grigorev) At the same time Victor worked as an art director of the film The Anatomy of the miracle, director V.Ivanov).
Work
Victor Sydorenko is one of leaders of Modern Ukrainian Art. Victor's pathway from realism to neoavant-gardism is first of all a tribute to the full freedom of creativity of the last generation that grown and was working at a totalitarian regime.[1] Time, Memory and History are the central idea of the project, which extrapolated their polyvariance and different readings into the language of visual images and construction. Such specific realities of our time as the memory problems, a heritage of posttotalitarian rudiments, the questions of identification of the person in the modern world which is becoming more and more complicated, the prospects of the person in new globalised model of life-construction, enter into the sphere of creative interests of the artist. Besides, the research orientation of its creativity also concerns the past, but with underlined deideologized relation to a cultural heritage, with the use of possibilities of an arsenal of new media.
From the moment of creation of the project "Amnesia" (1995) the idea of «the renewal in memory of fragments of the past» will not leave Victor Sidorenko's creative consciousness and every following project will be constructed on the basis of the concrete experience of the childhood, adolescence, youth.
The totalitarianism theme in its any forms and displays becomes the object of research of the Sydorenko in the project «Ritual dances» (1997). The author considers it as the global phenomenon of the ideological unfreedom, whether a political mode, whether sectarianism, religious dictatorship in which everything is directed on absorption of the person not only in spiritual way, but also in physical one. The project meaningly excludes any spatial and time concreteness and it is deprived of reflexions concerning the Soviet past. Its main task is to display the especial sensation of a paroxysm, crisis and spiritual degradation which are present at consciousness of the person living in the totalitarian validity.
Total collapse of system of traditional-humanistic values is presented in the project "Cytochronismus" (2002) in which impressive craquelures personifie «asthenic syndrome». The artist gets into the theme of microstructures of the world and of the communication with the real world, influences, and also actions of spiritual space.
With his project "Millstones of Time", kept in neoclassic trend he created an outstanding, multilayered work, which special feature is its work in process. This becomes obvious in its ability to gain different modifications depending from concrete exhibitional space without losing its main concept, as well as in presupposed consistent flexibility of perception of all its media components. This supports the fair thesis that the integrity of optics of the "current moment" is rather the totality of fragments understood in the process, in movement of feelings and modeled by thinking, imagination, nostalgically seeking the unity and coherency.[2]
The searches of own identity in social collective are finished by the triumph of the unification. This is how the artist suggests to decipher the word-hybrid taken out in the name of an exposition of "Authentification" (2006). Victor Sydorenko does not stop here: the mechanism which is put in action and is generating metaphors, forces the author to make out a mummification prototype in a banal hairstyle. This triumph of a body looks like the transformation of a trunk into a preform for the plaster dummy which will definitively replace the person in society is cast. Only this dummy still has a chance to survive and find immortality.
In the project "Levitation" (2008–2009), the artist gives an advantage to the optical illusive game which is created by dense and viscous red colour and by the space with large-format picturesque planes and installation. Man's figures stretched out and soaring in air, are forcing to lose reference points and coordinates, and even yourself.[3]
Awards
- 1996, Kiev, Ukraine. The winner of "Golden section" at Art festival.
- 2000, Kiev, Ukraine. The winner of "the Gold Palette» on "Millennium-opening day".
- 2003, Kiev, Ukraine. Golden Medal of Ukrainian Academy of Arts.
- 2005, Magdebourg, Germany. The author of the best project of V International Festival of Arts.
Biennials
- 2003 - “Millstones of time”, the personal project at 50th International exhibition of the modern art in Venice. The author and the curator of the project.
- 2007 - «The poem about an internal sea», the Ukrainian project at 52nd International exhibition of the modern art in Venice. The co-curator.
Collections
- National Art Museum of Ukraine
- Kharkiv Museum of Fine Arts, Ukraine
- Krasnograd Museum of Regional Studies, Ukraine
- Stakhanov Museum of History and Fine Arts, Ukraine
- Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, Helsinki, Finland
- Ministry of Culture and Arts of Ukraine
- Ismayil Art Gallery, Ukraine
- Yale University, School of Art, United States
- Collection of Jean Jaques Ludovikovich Viella, Versailles, France
- Collection of Wolfgang Beckers and Berbel Kroll, Laugenfeld, Germany
- Collection of Peter Schunk, Berlin, Germany
- Collection of Y.A. Yevtushenko, Moscow, Russia
- President's Palace, Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan
Scientific essays
- Вдосконалювати художній процес (To improve an art process) //Образотворче мистецтво (Visual art). 1987. № 5;
- На переломі (On crisis) // Образотворче мистецтво (Visual art). 1988. № 2;
- Проникнення в таємницю вічності (The penetration into the secret of eternity) // Образотворче мистецтво (Visual art). 1994. № 2;
- Венеціанські Бієнале і проблеми сучасного мистецтва в Україні. (The Venetian Biennials and modern art problems in Ukraine) В зб.: Сучасне мистецтво (Modern Art). Вип. 1. К., 2004;
- Непосредственность восприятия (The spontaneity of perception) // Понедельник (The Monday). 2004. №14;
- Мистецьке одкровення Харкова. (The creative revelation of Kharkov) В зб.: Сучасне мистецтво ((Modern Art)). Вип. 3. К., 2006;
- Візуальне мистецтво від авангардних зрушень до новітніх спрямувань. (The visual art from vanguard shifts to the newest directions) К., 2008. (The monographic research);
- FIAC 08: погляд зблизька (FIAC 08: Sight at a short distance) //Курсив (The italics). - 2009. - №2.
Bibliography
- Н.Мусієнко. Аутентифікація – крок до само ідентифікації (N. Musienko. Authentification - a step to self-identification) //Курсив (The italics) . №2. 2009.
- Н.Булавіна. Футурама Віктора Сидоренка (N. Bulavina. The futurama of VIctor Sydorenko) // Fine Arts. №1. 2009.
- О.Тарасенко. На границе двух реальностей (O. Tarassenko. On the border of two realities) // Ukrainian Art Today. К. 2008.
- Olivier Jean. Millstones of Time. Traverse-video 2007. La Re-visite. 2007. Toulouse.
- Eastern Neighbours. Utrecht. 2006.
- Millstones of Time Faster than History. Contemporary Perspectives on the Future of Art in the Baltic Countries, Finland, Russia. Helsinki. «KIASMA». 2004.
- О.Сидор-Гибелинда. Творимая легенда (O. Sidor-Guibelinda. The legend which is being created) // Политик-Hall (Politic-hall). 2004.
- Elaine W. Ng. The 50th Venice Biennale. Leonardo reviews. 2003.
- Michael Kimmelman. Cramming It All In at the Venice Biennale// The New York Times. 2003.
- Паралійський Є. Художні серії про наше життя (E. Paraliyskiy. Art series about our life) // Літературна Україна (Literary Ukrain). 1998.