It all starts March 16
The Russians are invading! FotoFest Biennial bonanza to be spread across 60-plusspaces
Margo Ovcharenko, Rita with a Cigarette, 2010, from the series Without Me
Igor Savchenko, from the Faceless series, 1989
Vladimir Lagrange, The Alphabet of the Deaf, c. 1960
Valera and Natasha Cherkashin, from the installation The Fall of Empire,1994-1997
Alexey Kuzmitchev, Poet, 2006
Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, from the series Heart Cancer, 2004
Photo via FotoFest International
FotoFest has unveiled the exhibitions and list of participating artists for its 2012 International Biennial of Photography and Photo-related Art.
On view March 16 through April 29, the upcoming Biennial examines half a century of Russian photographic arts in three exhibits — exploring work from the post-Stalin years through the liberalizing Perestroika era and into the nation's current age of individualism and consumerism.
FotoFest co-founders Fred Baldwin and Wendy Watriss hope the exhibitions will open new avenues of discussion surrounding a little-known part of postwar modernism.
Working with renowned Moscow art institutions like the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture and the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, FotoFest has assembled the work of nearly 150 artists whose output includes not only classical photography but video and mixed-media installations as well.
FotoFest co-founders Fred Baldwin and Wendy Watriss hope the 800 pieces on display, many shown for the first time outside of Russian, will open new dialogues about a little-known part of postwar modernism.
“[These exhibits] bring visibility to personalities and creative directions in Russian visual art that have been largely invisible to the outside world in recent decades,” Baldwin said in a statement, noting that the Biennial programming will "challenge expectations" viewers may have of the Russian artistic tradition.
After Stalin, “The Thaw”, The Re-emergence of the Personal Voice: Late 1950s-1970s (Williams Tower Gallery)
New artistic voices emerged in the years of social reformation following Stalin's death in 1953. Known as "The Thaw," the period would produce artists like Mikhail Dashevskiy, who mined his own personal history for thematic material, the likes of which would have been impossible in the first half of the century.
For the Biennial, Lumiere Brothers Center has helped to collect material from important new photo clubs like Novator that helped to circulate historical and contemporary photographic works not sanctioned by the state.
Perestroika, Liberalization and Experimentation: Mid/late 1980s-2010 (Winter and Spring Street Studios)
As state censorship dissolved with the decline of the Soviet Union in the mid 1980s, the Russian art scene saw a explosion of creative energy and experimentation often aimed at the changing cultural patterns after the fall of communism.
Across two large former warehouse spaces, this portion of the Biennial exhibits highlights the first generation of artists in decades to gain substantial recognition beyond Soviet borders, figures like AES+F, Sergey Bratkov, Valera and Natasha Cherkashin, and Olga Tobreluts.
The Young Generation: 2007-2012 (FotoFest Headquarters)
Most younger Russian artists have has little or no experience with Soviet life, knowing only the global, consumerist and individual-oriented society found in Russian today. While artists of a previous generation looked outward for inspiration, art photographers such as Tatiana Plotnikova, Margo Ovcharenko and Anna Skladmann base much of their work on the highly personal experiences of growing up in contemporary Russia.
This year's Biennial will open with a public reception Friday, Mar. 16, 2012 at FotoFest’s Vine Street building. Visit FotoFest.org for more information on programming, including the 60-plus additional Biennial exhibits spaces located throughout the city this spring.
