Artwork information
- Author
- Alexander Chekmenev
- Project
- Ambulance
- Name
- Untitled
- Year
- 1994-1995
- Medium
- analogue C-print
- Dimensions
- 51х35 cm
- Provenance
- The photographer's private archive
- Catalog number
- CHEA-450
- Inscription
-
On the verso side: inscription “Ambulance 1994-1995 Luhansk. Ukraine 1/4+2 AP Alexander Chekmenev” and the artist’s signature
About the artist
Untitled
Alexander Chekmenev (b. 1969, Luhansk) is a Ukrainian photographer. He started his career in 1988 as an apprentice photographer in a studio in his home city of Luhansk. In search of his personal style, he began photographing people on the streets and in their homes to show the devastating effects of the economic crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In particular, Chekmenev’s work gave an intimate and unique perspective on the turmoil caused to the Donbas mining industry as Ukraine underwent significant social and political upheaval. Chekmenev moved to Kyiv in 1997, where he still works today as a photojournalist, using the medium to document the progress made and the challenges faced by his country and its people through peacetime, revolutions and war.
Chekmenev’s work has been published in The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, TIME Magazine, TIME LightBox, New Yorker Photo Booth, Quartz Magazine, The Guardian, Vice Magazine, WIRED Magazine and The Atlantic Magazine. A portrait of President Volodymyr Zelensky taken in April 2022 for the cover of TIME magazine was sold for 150,000 euros on December 15, 2022, at the Forbes Ukraine charity auction in Kyiv. All of the money was donated to charity to buy generators for children’s institutions damaged under Russian occupation. Another copy of the Zelensky portrait was sold at auction on November 22, 2023, for $150,000 as part of a campaign by Ukrainska Pravda. All of the money raised went to support the Air Command “Skhid” air defense unit in eastern Ukraine.
Chekmenev won the 1st prize “Ukrpressphoto” category “New Names” in 1994. In 2000 Chekmenev won the European documentary photography competition for the series Ukrainian Passport. In 2014 Chekmenev was awarded with the Grand Prix “Photographer of the Year of Ukraine 2013.”
His works are in the collections of Märkisches Museum Witten, Germany, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine, Museum Ludwig, Germany, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Museum of Kharkiv School of Photography, Kharkiv, Ukraine, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, and Kunstmuseum Bayreuth, Germany.
Chekmenev is the author of the photo books Donbas (2011), Passport (2017), Lilies (2020), and Pharmacon (2021).
_____________________________________
Photo credit – Fabian Weiss.
Solo exhibitions
2000 — Poprad, Slovakia (series Passport, Lilies)
2001 — Zamek gallery, Poznan, Poland (series Easter, Passport, Lilies, Blind, Portraits, Miners)
2007 — “Чорно-біла фотогарфія / Black and White Photography”, “Yagallery”, Kyiv, Ukraine
2012 — “Joseph Huber Sura/Alexander Chekmenev DONBASS”, Clara Maria Sels gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany (series Donbas)
2014 — “Mad World”, Clara Maria Sels gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany
2015 — Palffy Palace, Bratislava, Slovakia (series Black and White Luhansk, Donbas)
2016 — Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, USA (series Donbass and Passport)
2017 — “Passport”, Folia Gallery, Paris, France (series Passport)
2019 — “Transit” (together with Viktor and Sergiy Kochetov), Odesa Photo Days 2019, State Litarature Museum, Odesa, Ukraine (curators – Sergiy Lebedynskyy, Oleksandra Osadcha, Katerinda Radchenko) (series Donbas)
2019 — “Видалені / Deleted”, Ukrainian House, Kyiv, Ukraine
2019 — “Фото на паспорт / Passport Photos”, Kyiv History Museum, Kyiv, Ukraine
2020 — “Pamiršta žemė / Forgotten Land”, Klaipeda CCC, Klaipeda, Lithuania (curator — Darius Vaičekauskas, co-curator — Sergiy Lebedynskyy) (series Donbas, Black and White Luhansk, Passport, Lilies)
2022 — “Faces of War” (together with Oksana Parafeniuk), Hoogsteder Museum Foundation, Hague, Netherlands (curator – Carole Glauser Pidoux)
2022 — “Citizens of Kyiv”, Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France
2022 — Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, USA (series Citizens of Kyiv)
2022 — “Alexander Chekmenev: Testimone–Volti dell’Ucraina”, Church of Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, Venice, Italy (series Donbass, Lilies, Citizens of Kyiv)
2023 — “Občané Kyjeva / Citizens of Kyiv”, Artinbox Gallery, Prague, Czechia (curator – Helena Staub)
2023 — Cityhall of Pullach i. Isartal, Germany (series Donbas, Passport, Citizens of Kyiv, Deleted)
2023 — “Faces of War”, Bibliothèque universitaire Droit et Lettres, Saint-Martin-d’Hères, la Haute Ecole pédagogique Vaud, Lausanne, France (curators —Alexandra Kaourova, Barbara Fournier) (series Citizens of Kyiv)
2023 — “Citizens of Kyiv”, De Studio, Antwerpen, Belgium
2024 — “Donbas – Photographic memories since 1994”, Kunstmuseum Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
Group exhibitions
1994 — 1 lace in Ukrpressphoto contest, “New Names” category, Kyiv, Ukraine
2000 — European competition of documentary photography, Vevey, Switzerland
2008 — “4×4. Ukrainian Contemporary Photography”, House of photography, Vilnius, Lithuania
2010 — “Якщо, Если, If”, Contemporary art museum PERMM, Perm, Russia (curator — Ekaterina Degot) (series Donbas)
2010 — 3rd Festival of documentary photographs, Poznan, Warsaw, Poland (series Donbas)
2012 — First Kyiv Biennial of Contemporary Art “Arsenale-2012”, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine (series Winners)
2013 — “The look behind | Der Blick dahinter”, Märkischen Museum in Witten, Witten, Germany (series Donbas)
2014 — “I’m Drop in the Ocean – Art of the Ukrainian Revolution”, Vienna Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Austria (series Warriors)
2014 — “LEGACY: Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, & The Caucasus”, Newcastle upon Tyne, Great Britain (series Warriors)
2014 — “Shift: Ukraine in Crisis”, Third Floor Gallery, Cardiff, Great Britain (series Warriors)
2014 — “Євромадйан: власна історія”, 8 bit Gallery, Kyiv, Ukraine (curator – Khrystyna Shestak)
2016 — “Deformation”, Suwon Photo festival, Suwon, South Korea (series War in Donbas)
2017 — “Дослідницька платформа: Анонімне суспільство / Research Platform: Anonymous Society”, PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv, Ukraine (curator – Tetiana Kochubinska) (series Passport)
2018 — “Image Singulieres”, Entrepôts Larosa, Set, France (series Passport)
2018 — “Permanent Revolution. Ukrainian art today”, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary (curators – Alisa Lozhkina, Julia Fabényi, Konstantin Akinsha) (series Passport)
2018 — “Vom Auf- und Abstieg” (together with Clemens Botho Goldbach, Olaf Metzel), Märkischen Museum in Witten, Witten, Germany (series Donbas)
2018 — “Свій простір”, PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv, Ukraine (curators – Tatiana Kochubinska and Tetiana Zhmurko) (серія Warriors)
2019 — “UPHA Made in Ukraine”, AKT art space, Kyiv, Ukraine (curators — Victoria Bavykina, Maksim Horbatskiy, Yarolsav Solop, art director – Misha Buksha)
2019 — Grenoble Photomonth, La Maison de l’Image, Grenoble, France (series Deleted)
2019 — Suwon Photo festival, Suwon, South Korea (series Euromaidan)
2019 — “Between Fire and Fire: Ukrainian Art Now”, Semperdepot, Vienna, Austria (series Passport)
2021 — “Чутливість / Sensitivity”, “Mystetskyi Arsenal” National Cultural and Art and Museum Complex, Kyiv, Ukraine, (curators — Maksym Gorbatskyi, Solomia Savchuk, Oleksandr Soloviov)
2022 — “Focus Ukraine”, Kunstsammlungen & Museen Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany
2022 — “The New Abnormal”, PHOXXI, Hamburg, Germany (curators — Kateryna Radchenko and Ingo Taubhorn) (series Citizens of Kyiv)
2022 — “Ukraine. The Pass to Freedom”, Noorderlicht Photography Foundation, Groningen, Netherlands (curators — Kateryna Radchenko, Wim Melis) (series Passport)
2023 — “Faces of Europe (Visage(s) d’Europe”, Paris, France (series Citizens of Kyiv)
2023 — “Home”, Liverpool, UK (curators – Viktoria Bavykina, Max Gorbatskyi) (series Citizens of Kyiv, Passport)
2024 — “Generations of Resilience”, Hangar, Brussels, France (series Citizens of Kyiv)
2024 — “Home, Centre for Photography”, Edinburgh, UK
2024 — “Photography Noir. Existence”, Ex Niceta, Palermo, Italy, Galerie K’, Bremen, Germany (curator — Darius Vaičekauskas)
Бібілографія
4х4: ukrainian and lithuanian contemporary photography. Kyiv: ArtBook Publishing, 2008.
Bowcock, Simon. “Passport to eternity: photographing the forgotten elderly of Ukraine”. The Guardian, December 29, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/dec/29/passport-photograph-elderly-ukraine-alexander-chekmenev.
Chekmenev, Alexander. Donbass. Heidelberg: Kerher, 2011.
Chekmenev, Alexander. Lilies. Kharkiv: MOKSOP, 2020.
Chekmenev, Alexander. Passport. Stockport: Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2017.
Chekmenev, Alexander. Pharmakon / Ambulance. Palermo: 89books, 2021.
Estrin, James. “Tangled Identities and Allegiances in Ukraine”. The New York Times, May 15, 2014. https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/tangled-identities-and-allegiances-in-ukraine/.
Merelli, Annalisa. “Photo by Alexander Chekmenev. Incredible images from inside Soviet-era homes”. Quartz, October 18, 2015. https://qz.com/515772/incredible-images-from-inside-1990s-soviet-era-homes/.
Shuster, Simon “Strong Arm of the State: Alexander Chekmenev’s Post-Independence Ukraine Passport Photos”. Time, May 13, 2014. https://time.com/3809299/ukraine-passport-photos/.
Баздирева, Ася [Bazdyrieva, Asia]. “ЧИТАТЬ ДАЛЬШЕ: Александр Чекменев. ДОНБАСС”. ArtUkraine, January 25, 2012. http://artukraine.com.ua/a/chitat-dalshe-aleksandr-chekmenev–donbass/#.Xozau3JS82w.
Зиятдинова, Эмине [Ziyatdynova, Emine]. “По ту сторону отчаяния: Новая выставка Александра Чекменёва”. Brid in Flight, August 22, 2014. https://birdinflight.com/ru/vdohnovenie/opyt/po-tu-storonu-otchayaniya-novaya-vystavka-alexander-chekmenev.html.
Константинова, Катерина [Konstantynova, Katerina]. “ Другая наша Украина. Фотоувеличение. Луганские люмпены обрели комфорт под крышей Павла Гудимова”. Дзеркало тижня, March 21, 2008. https://zn.ua/CULTURE/drugaya_nasha_ukraina_fotouvelichenie__luganskie_lyumpeny_obreli_komfort_pod_kryshey_pavla_gudimova.html.
Константинова, Катерина [Konstantynova, Katerina]. “Донбас — це різні люди, яким є що втрачати… Їм достатньо однієї іскри”. Дзеркало тижня, May 22, 2014. https://dt.ua/CULTURE/donbas-ce-rizni-lyudi-yakim-ye-scho-vtrachati-yim-dostatno-odniyeyi-iskri-_.html.
Манукян, Юлия [Manukian, Yulia]. “По следам Odesa Photo Days 2019: Александр Чекменев как образец самореференции”. Пространство, 2019. https://www.prostranstvo.media/po-sledam-odesa-photo-days-2019-aleksandr-chekmenev-kak-obrazec-samoreferencii/.
Населенко, Саша [Naselenko, Sasha]. “Фотограф Олександр Чекменьов: «Як той, хто знімає, я бачу людину і несправедливість”. Opinion, April 23, 2019. https://opinionua.com/2019/04/23/fotograf-oleksandr-chekmenov-yak-toj-xto-znimaye-ya-bachu-lyudinu-i-nespravedlivist-2/.
Олександр Чекменьов [Alexander Chekmenev]. Чорно-біла фотографія. Kyiv: ArtBook Publishing, 2008.
Савченко, Оксана [Savchenko, Oksana]. “Своя коногонка”. Фокус, 2015. https://focus.ua/long/341515.
Сафонов, Евгений [Safonov Yevgeniy]. “Александр Чекменёв: ‘Мне интересно собирать осколки прошлого’ ”. Brid in Flight, September 9, 2015. https://birdinflight.com/ru/vdohnovenie/opyt/aleksandr-chekmenyov-mne-interesno-sobirat-oskolki-proshlogo.html.
Ушинана, Татьяна [Ushina, Tatiana]. “Фотограф Александр Чекменёв: На Востоке все говорят, что это странная война”. Insider, September 8, 2014. http://www.theinsider.ua/art/540d7b33eae7c/.
Шебетко, Антон [Shebetko, Anton]. “Почему новая книга Александра Чекменева должна стать настольной для каждого украинца”. Brid in Flight, December 28, 2016. https://birdinflight.com/ru/vdohnovenie/opyt/20161227-snyat-ukrainu-fotografii-na-pasport-v-novoj-knige-aleksandra-chekmeneva.html
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