Savadov Arsen

Arsen Savadov is one of the most significant and provocative representatives of Ukrainian contemporary art.

In 2001 Arsen Savadov represented Ukraine at the Venice Biennale, curated by the legendary Harold Zeeman. His work “Cleopatri’s Sorrow”, created together with George Senchenko in 1987, is considered a pivot point for contemporary Ukrainian art.

“During this period I worked only in the language of photography, because I did not realise how to do it otherwise. Then some kind of regression came, calmness, fatigue – you depend on the photographer, you depend on the film, you’ve worked for two months, and it all shrinks into such a box. And until you get to Kiev and develop it, you don’t know what you’ve done. There were no digital cameras. Before my eyes, the NYT was selling off all the analogue equipment and buying digital. Prices were throwaway in New York. It was a collapse. And all these miners, it’s all on film. I only have recent digital projects, where you can use Photoshop, remove some rope that holds the scenery, clean some dirt. Back then it was just negatives. And to make them, we travelled to Moscow, to Mosfilm. There we scanned them on a virtual scanner and printed something a little bit at a time” – this is how the artist describes his work with the medium of photography.