Victor Sydorenko

Name: ARTMAJEUR
Brand: ARTMAJEUR
Rating: 4.9 (8711 reviews)

Ukraine •

Artist (Installation, Painting) •

Born 1953 •

SYDORENKO VICTOR

31 December 1953 - was born in the town of Taldy-Kurgan, Kazakhstan
1974-1979 - studied at Kharkiv Institute of Applied Arts (professor B.V. Kosarev)
1985-1988 - Post Graduate of Creative Studio of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (Academician, professor S.A. Grigoryev)

Membership

Academy of Arts of Ukraine, National Union of Artists of Ukraine

Professional activities:

Since - 2001 - Founder and Director of the Modern Art Research Institute of Academy of Arts of Ukraine
2002 - Professor of Kharkiv Academy of Design and Arts

Principal curatorial projects:

1997, 2000, 2003 – Triennale of Graphic Arts, (catalogue), Kyiv, Ukraine
1998, 2001, 2004 – Triennale of Painting, (catalogue), Kyiv, Ukraine
1999, 2002 – Triennale of Sculpture, (catalogue), Kyiv, Ukraine
2000, 2002, 2005 – “New Directions”; Kyiv, Ukraine
2002 – “Art of Ukraine”, Central House of Artists, Moscow, Russia, (catalogue)
2003 – “ Millstones of Time”, Ukrainian project at the 50 Venice Biennale,
(catalogue, CD-ROM)

Personal exhibitions:

1989 - "The Aral Sea", Artist House, Kharkiv
1992 - Fine Arts Museum, Kharkiv
1993 - National Museum of Fine Arts , Kyiv
1995 - Art Gallery, Lviv, Ukraine
1996 - State Fine Arts Museum of Kazakhstan, Alma-Ata 1997 - Municipal Gallery, Kharkiv
1998 - Pendelton Art Centre, Cincinnati, USA
1999 - Lille, France (catalogue)
2000-2001 - “Aral cycle”, Maysternya gallery, Kyiv
2002 - Soviart gallery, Kyiv
2003 - “Millstones of Time”, 50th Venice Biennale, (catalogue, CD-ROM)
2003 - Lora D. Art gallery, Chicago, USA
2004 - “Millstones of Time”, National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kyiv
2006- «Authentification», Lavra gallery, Kyiv, Ukraine (catalogue)

Group exhibitions:

1979-1997 - All-Ukrainian exhibitions of the Union of Artists of Ukraine, Kyiv
1983 - All-Soviet Union exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts, Moscow
1984 - "My contemporary", Soviet-Union – Czecho-Slovakia, Central House of Artists, Moscow
1987 - Post Graduates Exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts of the USSR, Museum of Russian Fine Arts, Kyiv
1992 - Exhibition " Art of Ukraine", Yale University, USA
1992 - Exhibition of works of Ukrainian Artists, Berlin (Zelendorf, Germany)
1993 - "Konsumentart-93", Nurnberg, Germany
1995 - Kyiv Arts Fair – 95, Ukraine
1998 - International Art Festival, National Art Center “Ukrainian House”, Kyiv (catalogue)
1998 - Salon of Central and Eastern Europe, Paris, France
2000 - All-Ukraine Christmas Exhibition, National Union of Artists of Ukraine, Kyiv
2002 - “Art of Ukraine”, Beijing, China
2002 - “Art of nations”(1992-2002), Central House of Artists, Moscow, Russia, (catalogue)
2003 - “Blood: Lines and Connections”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, USA
2003 - “Eurographic – 2003”, Lavra gallery, Kyiv, Ukraine
2004 - “Faster than History”, Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, Helsinki, Finland (catalogue)
2004 - „Farewell, the weapon”, Museum of Contemporary Art «Arsenal», ...

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15 artworks by Victor Sydorenko (Selection)

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Millstones of time • 15 artworks

MILLSTONES OF TIME Victor Sydorenko It was after the concept occurred and the title of the project[...]

MILLSTONES OF TIME
Victor Sydorenko
It was after the concept occurred and the title of the project was conceived, when I suddenly remembered a story, which is a part of my family's history. My grandfather was a miller. After he came back home from war, an accident happened to him. Grandfather fell into millstones and got literally grinded - in few days he died.

Something similar is happening to all of us. The main idea of the project is everlasting, tediously dragging time, which grids, frays, destroys people, involves them into exhausting movement in circles, goes away and returns… Monotony of this revolving is not senseless - after all it brings something about… In film "The Sacrifice" by Andrey Tarkovsky there is a moment when a boy stubbornly pours the dry tree - and it blossoms. For those, who see us from above, we probably remind for ever fussing ants. Routine, stupid sameness - nevertheless this is life. However, inanity of life becomes obvious only when we seek in it the higher sense. From pragmatic point of view our monotonous work is rewarded with the hillock of grinded flour - some have bigger, some have smaller…

Everyone grinds his/her own, but we all do all the same. We are lonely and indifferent to each other, forced to co-exist together yet separately - friends, enemies, betrayers and the betrayed. This is the point from which originated the idea of quoting "The Last Supper". This plot is among eternal, because it provides an opportunity to express the inanity of our existence.

Once I recognized this plot on the photograph in the old album. I like thumb through the old albums, but not incidental, only those, where I can see familiar faces. On their pages one can perfectly trace the recurrence of being - constant flow of births, weddings, banquets, funerals… Only wars, unnaturally intervening into this causation, are breaking it - unfortunately there were too many of these breakups… In this way I came across hospital pictures - it was either prison hospital, or hospital for rehabilitation of those who came back after serious wounds. I was interested by not people only, but as well by the bizzare selfdone orthopedic constructions, which reminded more of torture instruments - some kind of spheres, crosses, props - in terms of plastics they are extremely interesting...The comprehention of their precise practical use is under the doubt, and in this sence the objects are abstract, - which does not deprive them of beeing completely "realistic" in philosophical, metaphysical sence.

People in white underwear look more stripped of identity. Drawers worn in totalitaristic XXth century by everyone, - soldiers, prisoners and citizens - are the sign of equality, generality of the destiny. As well, I have tryed to express more general situation, where always and every place, while totalitarism or democracy; now, as five thousand years ago, people find themselves - the duel with time. Beeing in presentiment, in waiting and uncertainty each personage of the action is envolved into monotonous, passive race. None of the pictured can not escape the participation in somehow already known, but yet unpercieved by them ritual...