David Chychkan

David Chychkan is a 32-year-old Kyiv-based artist and activist. David is an anarchist; from 2010 till 2016 he was a member of Autonomus worker’s union (Ukraine), from 2014 he is a member of libertarian organization Black rainbow. 

In 2014 David has launched a research initiative LCUD (Libertarian Club of Undeground Dialectics), that explores the philistine, widespread dimensions of right ideology in Ukraine. In some way David uses the LCUD as an individual artistic method.

His artistic career has started in the early 2000s. He participated in the Kyiv Biennial 2015 – The School of Kyiv and Kyiv Biennial 2017 – The Kyiv International. His personal project During the war was held in April-May 2016 in the Artsvit gallery in Dnipro (Ukraine). In February 2017 David’s personal exhibition The Lost Opportunity, held in the Visual Culture Research Centre in Kyiv, was attacked and destroyed by neo-nazi. The exhibition represented David’s reflection about Maidan, phenomena of Decommunization, the war on the East of Ukraine and his critics of the Ukrainian far- right movements.

During The Kyiv International - Kyiv Biennial 2017 one of David’s works that survived the attack was not allowed to be exhibited in the State Pavlo Tychyna Literary- Memorial Museum-Apartment in Kyiv since the administration of the museum was afraid that the museum will be also attacked by Ukrainian right-wing radicals. ​ David’s main technique is watercolor graphics.