{"id":342532,"date":"2025-08-14T00:44:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T00:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/342532\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T00:44:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T00:44:27","slug":"he-considered-war-to-be-the-culmination-of-anti-human-power-ukrainian-artist-david-chichkan-killed-on-frontline-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/342532\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018He considered war to be the culmination of anti-human power\u2019: Ukrainian artist David Chichkan killed on frontline – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Chichkan, one of Ukraine\u2019s most prominent contemporary artists, whose life and work were inseparable from his devotion to the ideals of anarchism, has died while fighting Russian forces, according to Ukraine\u2019s Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications. The ministry cited a report<\/a> by his fellow combatants, stating that he was struck \u201cwhile repelling an assault by Russian infantry\u201d in Ukraine\u2019s Zaporizhzhia region on 8 August, and on \u201cthe next day, his heart stopped\u201d.<\/p>\n

The artist joins a growing list of Ukrainian cultural workers who have died since the beginning of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion, including 36-year-old Maryna Hrytsenko, the chief curator of the Galagan Art Museum in Chernihiv, who was killed in a Russian drone strike on 7 August while serving as a medic. PEN Ukraine, a human rights organisation dedicated to protecting freedom of speech and promoting the development of international cultural cooperation, has recorded the deaths of 221 cultural figures<\/a> since February 2022.<\/p>\n

The pain of hope and despair<\/p>\n

Chichkan, who was born in Kyiv in 1986, came from a dynasty of Ukrainian artists that spanned Soviet socialist realism and anti-Soviet non-conformist art. His great-grandfather Leonid Chichkan\u2019s works are among those that have been looted by Russia from the Kherson Art Museum<\/a> under the guise of \u201cpreserving cultural property\u201d.<\/p>\n

While not formally educated as an artist, David Chichkan became known for his avant-garde and iconographic images. His work was infused with references to Ukraine\u2019s activist and anarchist history, including references to the\u00a019th\u00a0century feminist writer\u00a0Lesia\u00a0Ukrainka, and to Nestor Makhno, an anarchist revolutionary who fought for Ukrainian independence a century ago.<\/p>\n

Cultural critic and curator Kostiantyn Doroshenko wrote in 2016<\/a>, two years after Russia\u2019s initial invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, that Chichkan\u2019s works convey \u201cthe pain of despair, the pain of hope, the pain of experience and stubbornness, the pain of individual confidence in the possibility of global social change of the world and man despite everyday reality pulsates in his art\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Chichkan shared this work to Instagram in 2024, with the caption \u201canarchic and anti-authoritarian left drones\u201d<\/p>\n

David Chichkan via Instagram<\/p>\n

The Art Newspaper contacted Doroshenko via social media, where he described Chichkan as unique among Ukrainian artists for his principled stance. \u201cAmong many artists who declared a socially critical, leftist agenda to the extent of its international relevance and grant support, he was the only one who maintained consistency between his statements and actions,\u201d Doroshenko wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe believed that every person is an artist, and viewed his works as a way of conveying to society the ideas of equality, freedom, responsibility, and the right of everyone to be themselves. He resisted any stigmatization, reacted sharply to discrimination, and saw the causes of these phenomena in patriarchy, capitalism, and power hierarchies.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an anarchist, he considered war to be the culmination of anti-human power. But he went to the front because he saw that Russia was destroying all freedom, human dignity, and diversity\u2026Like Nestor Makhno, like the anarchists during the Spanish Civil War, he understood that sometimes one must fight for the future with weapons in hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hole left behind<\/p>\n

In the past Chichkan was repeatedly targeted by right-wing Ukrainian activists for raising questions in his art about the history and contemporary path of Ukrainian society. An exhibition of his works at the Center for Visual Culture in Kyiv was violently raided by masked militants in 2017. In January 2024, an online campaign led to the cancellation of his exhibition at Odesa National Fine Arts Museum.<\/p>\n

In a Facebook post on 11 August, Chichkan\u2019s wife Anya addressed those campaigners. \u201cHe died in battle on the front lines, spent a year in hell itself, while armchair patriots from the rear criticized him for his leftism,\u201d she wrote. The artist is also survived by his young son.<\/p>\n

Lisa Korneichuk is the editor-in-chief of Navigating the War as Artists in Ukraine<\/a>, a handbook published earlier this year by Ukraine\u2019s Museum of Contemporary Art, a non-government organisation which, in 2022, co-founded the Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund. Korneichuk told The Art Newspaper about the gaping hole left by artists going to war, and how this issue is being addressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Ukraine, the topic is unavoidable\u2014any man aged 25 to 60 can be drafted\u2014so we felt it was important to address it and include voices of artists who are now serving,\u201d she wrote. \u201cOne of the profound losses of war is that it pulls these people out of social and professional life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe it is crucial to support artists in the military so they can maintain a presence in the professional and public sphere, even if they are absent, unable to travel, or to produce new work. Ensuring their continued participation should be a priority for organisations that support artists in crisis worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Chichkan, one of Ukraine\u2019s most prominent contemporary artists, whose life and work were inseparable from his devotion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[121853,2000,299,23502,7661,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-342532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-david-chichkan","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-obituary","12":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","13":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115024355251284721","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}