Kirill Aleksandrovich Svetlyakov
Kirill Aleksandrovich Svetlyakov (born May 3, 1976, Moscow) is a prominent Russian art historian, exhibition curator, art critic, and writer who serves as Chief Specialist for Contemporary Art in the management department of the State Tretyakov Gallery. He holds a PhD in Art History and has received the Sergey Kuryokhin Prize (2012) and the State Prize for Contemporary Art "Innovation" (2021). After graduating from Moscow State University's Art History department in 1998 and completing a fellowship at Humboldt University in Berlin, he defended his doctoral dissertation on Paul Cézanne's influence on Russian art in 2002.
Svetlyakov's career at the Tretyakov Gallery began in 2006, where he rose to head the Department of Contemporary Trends from 2010 to 2016. His tenure was marked by innovative curatorial approaches and significant acquisitions, including over 3,500 artworks for the gallery's collection. However, tensions arose with the arrival of new leadership in 2015, leading to his departure from the department head position in 2016, though he remained with the gallery as a curator and researcher. His experimental exhibition practices became increasingly difficult to implement under the new administration's preference for more traditional displays.
As a curator, Svetlyakov is known for his egalitarian approach, combining artworks of varying reputations with non-art objects that he finds aesthetically valuable, inspired by Mikhail Larionov and Marcel Broodthaers in this regard. His most notable exhibitions include the controversial "Not Forever. 1968-1985" (2020), which sparked widespread media discussion about artistic values and Soviet cultural heritage, and "The Thaw. 1953-1968" (2017), part of his planned trilogy on late Soviet art periods. His curatorial philosophy challenges traditional hierarchies in art presentation, treating paintings, industrial models, and everyday objects as equal media within exhibition spaces.