Gennadiy Kozub

In the early 1990s Kozub worked at a representative office of Maruni brand in Ukraine (Zaporizhia; the founder). He was a private entrepreneur until 1998. In 1999 he became a co-owner of Billy Bones restaurant-casino in Zaporizhia, which lasted eleven years. In 2001 he became the vice-president of the All-Ukrainian Bartenders Association. He was a co-owner of Banzay Japanese restaurant in 2003 until 2016 in Zaporizhia. He entered co-ownership of Biryuk-Bar in 2006 on Byriuchyi Island. In 2008 he became vice president of the Association of Contemporary Art Researchers. He became president of the association in 2019. He took ownership of Art Zebs gallery 2008 until 2009 in Zaporizhia. Then in 2011 he became the co-owner of Belaya Dacha cafeteria in Yalta which he left in 2015. From 2014 to 2015 he was the editor-in-chief of Biruchiy contemporary art magazine. Since 2018 he has co-owned the Drunken Monkey craft bar in Kyiv.

In autumn 2006, Kozub became a co-founder of the Biruchiy contemporary art project on Byriuchyi Island spit in the Sea of Azov. Mykola Barzion, a philanthropist, provided Zolotiy Bereg a recreation camp as an artist residence, while Kozub was the project commissioner, and Volodymyr Gulich the art director.[4]

Since the project's foundation, Kozub has organized it in the main residence (Byriuchyi Island, since 2006; 14 seasons, 208 artists, 11 art groups, 16 countries); in offsite residences in Ukraine (Irshansk, Zhytomyr Oblast, 2015) and Poland (Klementowice, Lublin Voivodeship, 2016–2017);[5] exchanging participants with art residences in Italy (Biella, 2013–2017) and the United States (New York City, 2017–2018); shooting films by Italian directors on Byriuchyi Island (2015–2016); project exhibitions in Ukraine (Zaporizhia, Kyiv, Koktebel, Kharkiv, Lviv, Melitopol, Khmelnytskyi; since 2006), Canada (Montreal, 2013) and Italy (Turin, 2017).[6]

Owing to Kozub's organizational participation, the international performative project "1000-km view" (Ukraine–Netherlands, 2015), the ethno-electronic festival Biruchiy Fest (2016), the educational event Biruchiy Art School (Poland, 2017) were held.

Kozub published nine catalogs of the project (2006–2018). He organized the publication of Biruchiy contemporary art magazine (2014–2015, 5 issues).[7]

Since the early 1990s, Kozub has been collecting art objects. He is at the 29th place in the rating of collectors of Ukrainian contemporary art according to Forbes Ukraine magazine. His collection contains about 100 works (in 2015): painting, graphic arts, sculpture, and photography.[8]

The artworks were presented at a retrospective exhibition dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Biruchiy contemporary art project in Kyiv in 2015.

Painting, graphic arts, art objects, photography are among Kozub's main interests. His works present the author's ironic reflection on current problems of our time.[9]

Participated in the international art project "Joseph Beuys' kids" (Crimea–Kyiv–Lviv–Lublin–Khortytsia, 2004–2005). He also participated in group exhibitions in Kyiv (2014), Odesa (2014), Geneva (2015). His paintings presented in Artvera's Geneva gallery, were reproduced by such periodicals as the Ukrayinska Pravda,[10] the Kyiv Post,[11] Komsomolskaya Pravda in Ukraine.[12]

The works are kept in private collections in Ukraine, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, USA, and Japan.