Borys Filonenko

Art critic, curator

Borys Filonenko is an art critic, curator of contemporary art, writer, comics creator, and teacher, from Kharkiv. He is editor-in-chief of IST Publishing, leading in particular a series of books about war and culture, translated into Ukrainian. He co-curated Ukraine’s national pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022) and the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale (2023), as well as the art-residency “About the Future”, organized by the Assortmentna Kimnata gallery in Ivano-Frankivsk. Borys curates laboratory exhibitions, including We Will Admire The Original After (House 42, Lviv, 2025). He holds an MA in philosophy from Kharkiv Karazin National University. In 2021–2022, he taught a theory of contemporary art course at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts, and a course on comics culture at Projector.Humanitarium. He is the author of several books including Louvre. Volodymyr Kostyrko. Yevhen Ravskyi (2017) and The Culture under pressure (2024). He also co-authored the graphic novel Near Mint, with artists Danylo Shtangeyev and Anton Reznik, as well as the comic strip Recounting Kharkiv, with Danylo Shtangeyev.