Jerzy Onuch

Jerzy Onuch (also Yuri Onuch, born July 28, 1954) is a contemporary artist and curator. He has been working as an artist since the late 1970s, presenting performance and installation works in Europe and North America. From 2005 to 2010, he held the diplomatic post of Director of the Polish Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine. Between 2010 and 2014 he was the director of the Polish Cultural Institute in New York.

Jerzy was born and raised in Poland, emigrated to Canada in 1987 and returned to Poland and later Ukraine in the mid 1990s. He is married with one daughter. Jerzy has, in 2005, completed his tenure at the Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Kyiv, Ukraine (formally the George Soros Centre for Contemporary Arts as part of the Soros Foundation). His tenure was one of the longest and most successful in the history of the center.

Under his leadership, the CCA promoted education and exposure of contemporary art (both Ukrainian and International). But more importantly Jerzy promoted young Ukrainian artists and student involvement in the CCA. During the "Orange Revolution" the CCA became a political centre for young artists-activists (now called REP) who used the centre's premises for the creation of "revolutionary art".

During his tenure at the CCA Jerzy was also a public and at times a political force, often treated by friends, colleagues and competitors as a moral authority on the development and state of arts and culture in post-communist Ukraine.