Sergei Sviatchenko

Sergei Sviatchenko is a Danish - Ukrainian architect, artist, photographer and curator. He is a representative of the Ukrainian New Wave, that arose in Ukraine up through the 1980s. Initiator and creative director of the Less Festival of Collage, Viborg and Just A Few Works. He has lived in Denmark since the 1990s. Sviatchenko graduated from Kharkov National University of Construction and Architecture in 1975, and in 1986 he studied a Ph.D. at the National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture. Sviatchenko is the son of architect Evgenij Sviatchenko (1924-2004), who was professor of architecture and a member of the National Ukrainian Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, and engineer Ninel Sviatchenko (1926-2000). In 1975 Sergei Sviatchenko completed his architectural studies at Kharkov National University of Construction and Architecture. Sergei Sviatchenko is especially oriented towards architecture's modern expressions, among these are Constructivism and the contemporary European Bauhaus movement. From his teacher, Professor Viktor Antonov, Sviatchenko was introduced to the film director Andrei Tarkovsky, and particularly his film Mirror from 1975 has left a thematic footprint in Sviatchenko's more recent collage art. After having worked as an architect for a number of architectural firms in Kharkov until 1983, Sviatchenko moved to Kyiv, where he successfully graduated the master's program at Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture|Kiev National University of Construction and Architecture, having completed his Ph.D. dissertation "Means to Visual Information in Architecture". In the 1980s he was one of the founders of the Soviart Center for Contemporary Art (Soviart) in Kiev and co-organizer and curator of the first Ukrainian exhibitions of contemporary art ”Kiev-Tallinn” at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute|Kiev Polytechnic Institute(1987), ”Kiev-Kaunas” (1988), the first joint exhibition by Soviet and American artists (1988) and curated the first Ukrainian exhibitions in Denmark: ”21 perceptions. Young Contemporary Ukrainian Artists” (1989), ”Ukrainian Art 1960-80” (1990), ”7 + 7” which was the first joint exhibition by Soviet and Danish artists (1990) and ”Flash. A New Generation of Ukrainian Art” (1990). At the end of 1990 Sviatchenko moved to Denmark with his wife Helena Sviatchenko having been awarded an art scholarship. In the same year he began to participate in solo and group exhibitions.