Davyd Chychkan / Давид Чичкан

Davyd Chychkan (1986, Kyiv - 2025, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine) was an artist and a left activist. His artistic practice has been fuelled by the transformative potential of the Maidan revolution (2013-2014), in which he was an active participant. If his earlier projects were devoted to the lost opportunities of the national-democratic uprising, his more recent series of works, prior to his untimely passing, focused on re-imagining Ukraine and its values.

Chychkan used diverse artistic media, such as watercolour graphics, installation, street art, and performance. His activism was integral to the development of his artistic practice, which he saw primarily as an instrument of the transformation of society. Chychkan’s works often evoke political posters made not for art galleries, but rather for mass dissemination —  on the streets and on the Internet. His consistent anti-elitist approach and the lucidity of his visual language, including the use of text, were, according to the artist, the best tools to convey an opinion.

As a proponent of the anti-authoritarian school of thought, he was an activist of various notable anarcho-syndicalist initiatives in Ukraine. In 2014, the artist launched the research initiative Libertarian Club of Underground Dialectics (LCUD), which explored the hegemonic dimensions of right-wing ideology in Ukraine through artistic means.

Inspired by anarchist philosophical thinking, Chychkan’s practice was aimed at the future, while being based on a close analysis of the past. By bringing attention to the early 20th century and the history of the socialist movement in the Ukrainian People's Republic, his work stressed the importance of resistance towards the new anti-historicism. A trinity of significant Ukrainian political and cultural figures often appears in Chychkan’s work: the political theorist, economist, historian and philosopher Mykhailo Drahomanov (1841–1895); the writer and feminist activist Lesya Ukrainka (1871–1913); and the writer, journalist, economist, activist, philosopher and ethnographer Ivan Franko (1856–1916). For the artist, the formation of the Ukrainian national idea is inseparable from progressive social pursuits and the fight of the Ukrainian people against Austro-Hungarian and especially Russian imperialism. Visually, Chychkan’s series Ribbons and Triangles combines the language of a classic political poster with a meticulous and respectful attitude to the intellectual, artistic and cultural heritage of Ukraine. The poetic folkloric elements, graphic patterns from Ukrainian embroidery, and the elements of traditional costume in his oeuvre, organically co-exist with modernist geometric designs. Along with the recognisable Ukrainian national colours — yellow and blue — the artist has added three more colours charged with symbolic connotation. Thus, black corresponds to the idea of anti-authoritarianism and decentralism; purple represents feminism and cultural progress; red refers to social equality and direct democracy. This new national iconography proposed by Chychkan not only refers to the Ukrainian struggle for liberation in the past, but also suggests a possible direction for the development of Ukrainian society as an unfulfilled modernist project, based on combining such ideas.

In May 2022, M HKA was honoured to present his work in the exhibition Imagine Ukraine, having acquired the works from his exhibition in Lviv, which had just closed when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. Davyd Chychkan voluntarily mobilised into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2024. He died on August 10 2025, from a serious wound he received while repelling a Russian infantry attack on the front lines in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. 

Among Davyd Chychkan’s personal projects are: Ribbons and Triangles (Lviv Municipal Art Center, Lviv, 2022), Alternative Hryvnia (Artsvit, Dnipro, 2021), Portraits that Speak (Bereznitsky Art Foundation, Kyiv, 2020), The Lost Opportunity (Visual Cultural Research Centre, Kyiv, 2017), and During the War (ArtSvit, Dnipro, 2016). Chychkan participated in several international projects, among which were exhibitions Between Fire and Fire: Ukrainian Art Now (Vienna, Austria, 2019), Biennale Warszawa (Warsaw, Poland, 2018), Permanent revolution (Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, 2018), The Kyiv International — Kyiv Biennial 2017 (Visual Cultural Research Centre, Kyiv, 2017).