Yuri Komelkov ( ; born 30 September 1962) is a Ukrainian publisher, gallerist, art collector, and art patron. He is the founder of the full-service advertising agency Atlant UMC (1997), Re!Zoni magazine (2001), the founder of the company Art-Blues (2002) and the Art-Blues gallery (2004), the owner of the Triptych gallery (2003),Bogachevska, O. "I will be a distinguished artist when I am worth a million". Gazetta po Ukrainski. 8 November 2013. the founder and the editor-in-chief of Aura magazine (2007), the founder of Cultprostir Internet platform (2014).Guests in the studio: the artist Anatoly Kryvolap and the founder of Cultural Prostir Yuri Komelkov. The Inter channel. 20 December 2014. He also established and ran the artist Ivan Marchuk's charity foundation (2005)Иван Марчук: «Когда же мы перестанем завидовать друг другу и научимся любить?» / О. Унгурян // Факты и комментарии. 2006. 22 ноября. and CultAura foundation (2013).Ukrainian artists are going to create their own arts award and big Internet-platform on culture. Gazetta po Ukrainski. 4 November 2013.
The Certificate of Honour of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (protocol No. 49 dated 24 September 2008) — "for high achievements in developing publishing and advertising business and significant personal contribution to a successful annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, held in Kyiv, May 2008".
Biography Yuri Komelkov was born in Siversk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on 30 September 1962. Graduated from secondary school No. 1 (1979). He graduated with honours from the Bogomolets Kyiv Medical Institute (1985, faculty of general internal medicine). At the same time, he got the second education at Kharkiv Institute of Industrial & Applied Arts (1985, industrial design faculty) according to the public education system; and completed an international course in traumatology and orthopedics specialty according to the AO system (Association for the Study of Osteosynthesis) in Davos (Switzerland, early 1990s).Full-service advertising agency Atlant UMC . The catalogue "Composition of the Ukrainian advertising market". 16 August 2011.
Career: a staff scientist in Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Orthopedics and Traumatology (1985–1997), the chief representative of the Swiss company Mathys Medical in Ukraine (1995–1997), owner and CEO of Atlant UMC ad agency (since 1997), president and co-founder of Litton publishing house (2000–2008), the owner of Re!Zoni magazine (2001), the CEO and owner of Art-Blues company (since 2002), the owner of the Triptych gallery (since 2003),The Triptych gallery celebrates its 25th anniversary. FaceNews. 29 October 2013. the editor-in-chief and the owner of Aura magazine (2007–2009), the owner of Cultprostir Internet platform (since 2014). The place of residence — Kyiv, Ukraine.The special project "People in the city": Yuri Komelkov . Our Kiev. 31 October 2013.
Yuri Komelkov holds the medical patent "The method of anterior spine fusion" (Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Orthopedics). USSR's certificate of authorship No. 833226, class A 61 B 17/56, 1981. The invention is used for osteoplastic fixation of the spine in spine injuries or disorders.Patents of the author Komelkov Yuri Alexandrovich.
Publishing activity
Atlant UMC book editions Atlant UMC (the founder and CEO of which is Yuri Komelkov) is a full-service advertising agency, founded in 1997. The agency is an active member of Ukrainian Advertising Coalition. Business profile: advertising and events (B2B, B2C, HR, branding, BTL, PR and media), advertising production (video and audio, POS-materials, exhibition equipment and stands, TV studios, print production). The company organized annual meetings of the Board of Governors of EBRD in Kyiv. The agency received over 40 international and national awards, including the Grand Prix of Kyiv International Advertising Festival (2001), 9 top positions in Moscow, Kazan and Kyiv international advertising festivals, 8 second places, 1 third place, and 8 finalist titles.The official site of Atlant UMC.
Atlant UMC is registered as a publishing house (certificate of registration in Public Register of publishing business entities DK No. 1918). Since 1997, it has published hundreds of books and magazines. Its book products are medical, scientific and fiction literature. A peculiarity of the house is its editions on art, comprising over 500 booklets, catalogues and albums of contemporary Ukrainian artists.
The major book project is an extensive edition of "Decorative art of Ukraine of the end of XXth century. The 200 names" (2002). For the first time during the years of independence, one book managed to present the creative work of 200 best artists of the country. The album-catalogue gained a top position in the rating "The Book of the year 2003" (won "Business card" nomination, and got the second place in Grand Prix). The author of the idea became the winner of the Shevchenko National Prize (2006).
Another significant book project was a big album-catalogue "Ivan Marchuk" (2004). The book illustrates all stages of the artist's oeuvre. Other distinguished photo albums are "Den. Photo 1999–2003" (2003), "Shot by shot: Kira Muratova. The chronicle of one movie" (2007), "Kyiv — city of chestnuts" (2007), art albums "Anatoly Kryvolap. Structures" (2009, under the aegis of the National Art Museum of Ukraine) and "Kyiv museum of Russian art" (2009, 4 types of cover).#Book editions.
The house has published albums of Igor Gorin (1999), Olga Antonenko (2004), Eduard Belsky (2004, 2006), Maria Prymachenko (2004), Eugen Derevianko (2005). Albums of Ivan Marchuk (2004, 2005, 2008), Oleksiy Vladimirov (2005, 2012), Anatoly Kryvolap (2006, 2008, 2009), Volodymyr Budnikov (2007, 2010) were published in different editions and series.
The house has published 5 album series. The series "Painting" includes 9 albums: on Anatoly Kryvolap (2006, 2008), Igor Yeliseyev (2006), Volodymyr Budnikov (2007, 2010), Ivan Marchuk (2008), Galyna Neledva (2009), Victor Ryzhikh (2009) and Matviy Vaisberg (2010). The series "Painting. Gesso" is represented by Leonid Bernat (2006) and Oleksiy Malykh (2007), the series "Painting. Graphics" is represented by Olexander Babak (2008), the series "Drawing" — by Olexander Sukholit (2010), the series "Sculpture" — by Oleksiy Vladimirov (2012). Art publications went out in Ukrainian, Russian and English.#The series "Painting", #Other series of books.
Re!Zoni magazine Re!Zoni magazine was published in 2001. Its founder and publisher is Litton publishing house (with its president Yuri Komelkov). The Russian title of the magazine stands for "advertisement areas". There were 3 issues of the magazine. It is a full-colour glossy magazine of 72–80-pages. It is a Russian-language magazine.Ре!Zоны. 2001. № 1. 72 с. Ре!Zоны. 2001. № 3. 80 с. Professional edition for participants of the Ukrainian advertising market.A new magazine on advertising titled Re!Zoni was published in Ukraine. The catalogue "Composition of the Ukrainian advertising market". 5 March 2001.
Aura magazine Aura art magazine was published in 2007–2009 (). Its founder and editor-in-chief is Yuri Komelkov. There were 7 issues of the magazine (No. 1 in 2007, No. 1–4 in 2008 and No. 1–2 in 2009). It's a full-color glossy magazine, of 116–124 pages. The majority of its articles are written in Russian, some articles are in Ukrainian. The magazine specializes in fine and decorative art.Aura. 2007. № 1. 116 с. Aura. 2008. № 1 (2). 124 с. Aura. 2008. № 2 (3). 124 с. Aura. 2008. № 3–4 (4–5). 116 с. Aura. 2009. № 1–2 (6–7). 122 с. .
The magazine is characterized by high informative value, popular presentation style and high quality illustrations. The list of authors includes the art collector Igor Dychenko, the TV journalist Yuri Makarov, curator Olga Lopukhova. One of the central columns is "Golden collection", dedicated to the best artists.Bespalchaya, A.The arts aura . Kievskiye Vedomosti. 2007. Three major art museums of the country — the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Museum of Western and Oriental Art and the Kyiv National Museum of Russian Art — have become partners of the magazine.Tysiachna, N. Precisely and subtly about art. New magazine launched in Ukraine // Den. 2007. No. 33.
Cultprostir Internet platform The CultAura foundation was established upon Yuri Komelkov's initiative in 2013. It serves "to renovate due consideration and attitude to culture in all population segments and all institutions".Komelkov, Y. The CultAura foundation's manifesto . Cultprostir. 1 November 2013. The Culprostir platform is a working tool of the foundation.
Cultprostir is aimed at becoming: 1) a reliable source of information on culture; 2) a rating panel; 3) a company to organize and realize system projects in the sphere of culture; 4) an active discussion platform. The new mass media platform was launched on 1 July 2014. Editorial copies are published synchronously in Russian and Ukrainian. The staff of the online media outlet comprises 7 people.Salizhenko, Y. Cultprostir: "In a few months we are planning to become the most authoritative periodical on culture". Platforma. 16 September 2014. By January 2015, the audience of Cultprostir amounted to over 100.000 readers monthly and 9000 subscribers in Facebook.Tolokolnikova, K. The mediabrave of the year. Telekritika. 12 January 2015.
Gallery activity
The Triptych gallery Yuri Komelkov's gallery activity started with his purchasing the Triptych gallery (2003).
It's the first private gallery in the capital, founded in 1988 by 5 co-founders (Olexander Milovzorov, Volodymyr Isupov, Nelli Isupova, Nataliya Pikush and Nina Lapchik), artists, who set the central focus of its activity (fine and decorative art).Юбилей галереи «Триптих» // Зеркало недели. 1998. № 7. For its popularity among artists, the writer Andriy Kurkov called it "the cornerstone of Andriyivskyy Descent".Гордейчук, І. Портрет в інтер'єрі «Триптиха» // День. 2008. № 236. Its exhibitions got into the headlines. For instance, Den covered Lyudmila Bruyevich's exhibition,Островський, І. Теплий вітер споминiв // День. 2002. № 95. Zerkalo Nedeli wrote about Nelli Isupova's exhibition.Войди в сад Нелли Исуповой // Зеркало недели. 1997. № 12. The gallery exhibitions were also covered in foreign reports. Latvian daily Diena (Riga) announced Yanis Meletskis' exhibition, which was held under the aegis of Embassy of Latvia in Ukraine (1998).Muižniece, Rūta. Joprojām pianists. Tagad arī gleznotājs? // Diena. Rīga, 1998. 17. 14 february. lpp.
At the moment of its being purchased, the gallery had a rich history but was in a poor condition. The new owner of the gallery restored the building and performed a full rebranding of the gallery. The institution started hosting regular expositions, participating in international projects, organizing annual plein-air events and publishing artists' catalogues. Fine arts (painting, sculpture, graphics) have become the main focus of the gallery.Hordiichuk, I. Triptych: an unsentimental journey to the past and the future. Kyiv's first private gallery marks its 25th anniversary // Den. 2013. No. 69. P. 12. It was the first time that cutting-edge business technologies were used in the gallery activity of the capital. The large-scale work commenced by the owner of the gallery was aimed at creating Ukrainian business elite's demand for works of art.