Biography
Arsen Volodymyrovych Savadov (born 1962, Kyiv) is a painter, graphic artist, and multidisciplinary artist. His father, Volodymyr Savadov, was also an artist.
1986 – Graduated from the Taras Shevchenko State Art High School in Kyiv.
From the 1980s – Participant in national and international exhibitions.
1982–1996 – Worked in a creative partnership with the artist Heorhii Senchenko.
2001 – Represented Ukraine at the 49th Venice Biennale.
2007 – Awarded the Order of Merit, 3rd Class.
Lives and works in Kyiv and the United States.
A representative of the Ukrainian New Wave and a key figure in Ukrainian contemporary art who emerged in the 1980s, Savadov’s work is associated with Ukrainian Transavantgarde. According to some art scholars, the canvas The Sorrow of Cleopatra, created jointly by Arsen Savadov and Heorhii Senchenko in 1987, became an emblem of Ukrainian Postmodernism and signaled the arrival of the New Wave. The artist absorbed academic traditions, transforming them into an innovative artistic discourse.
In the 1990s, Savadov worked with photography and video, collaborating first with Heorhii Senchenko and later with Oleksandr Kharchenko, before ultimately favoring an individual artistic career. He achieved widespread renown through his provocative projects Donbas-Chocolate and The Book of the Dead. In recent years, Savadov has focused on painting: “I am one of those artists who work with such ‘hard’ conventions of contemporary art as new mythology. I create works out of the fragments of consciousness.”
