45 days and more than 100 exhibits

Where to start and what to see: How to tackle FotoFest 2012 Biennial

Dziga Vertov, Man with a Movie Camera, 1929, frame from the film; screeningApril 15 at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. at the Glassell School's Freed Auditorium.
Movie still by Dziga Vertov
A 1979 piece by Sergey Vasiliev from Soviet Winners of World Press Photo,1956–91 on view Houston Community College, Central Art Gallery.
The 2010 documentary Desert of Forbidden Art will be showing at the RussianCultural Center on April 8 at 7:30 p.m.
The Desert of Forbidden Art
Valera and Natasha Cherkashin, from the installation The Fall of Empire,1994-1997; on view in FotoFest's exhibit Perestroika, Liberalization andExperimentation at the Winter and Summer Street Studios.
Vladimir Lagrange, The Alphabet of the Deaf, c. 1960; on view in the FotoFestexhibition After Stalin, The Thaw, The Re-emergence of the Personal Voice atWilliams Tower.

With six weeks to get through the extensive lineup for the 2012 FotoFest Biennial, which starts today, photo-aficionados will have to pace themselves. There are artist talks, poetry readings, musical performances, workshops, and films in addition to the main central exhibitions, the popular print auction and — no joke — more than 100 participating gallery spaces.

CultureMap has combed through the festival's dense schedule of events and exhibitions to offer some highlights to get everyone started.

Opening night

FotoFest knows how to throw a party, so be sure not to miss the opening night reception at the organization's headquarters (1113 Vine) tonight from 8 to midnight.

Free and open to the public, the celebration is expected to draw at least 3,000 revelers. Saint Arnold Brewing Company and La Fuente Winery will provide complimentary refreshments, while a selection of food truck vendors will be on site to feed the masses.

Main exhibits

Working with renowned Moscow art institutions like the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture and the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, FotoFest has developed three curated exhibits dedicated to the history of Russian photography after the Second World War.

The Young Generation: 2007–2012 at FotoFest HQ explores the artists working within the consumerist and individual-oriented society of Russia today.
Perestroika: Mid 1980s–2010 at the Winter and Spring Street Studios looks at the post-Cold War period, highlighting the first generation of Russian artists to gain international recognition.
The Thaw: L ate 1950s–1970s at the Williams Tower galleries looks to the development of photo-arts during the Soviet Union's complex cultural evolution following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953.

Films

On April 15, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will screen the landmark 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera in the Glassell School's Freed Auditorium at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Directed by pioneering Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov, the avant-garde silent movie captures everyday urban life in the USSR as it relates to modern machines. A new soundtrack was written for the film in 2002 by British minimalist composer Michael Nyman.

Also showing for FotoFest is the acclaimed 2010 documentary Desert of Forbidden Art, which plays at the Russian Cultural Center on April 8 at 7:30 p.m. The film follows the story of a young artist who rescued 40,000 forbidden artworks from the Soviet government to create a museum in the deserts of Uzbekistan.

Special exhibitions

At Houston Community College's Central Art Gallery, Soviet Winners of World Press Photo, 1956–91 looks to the work of more that 40 winning photojournalists from the renowned World Press Photo competition. The exhibit, running Mond to April 15, explores a half century of press photography that, until recently, rarely made its way beyond the borders of the Soviet Union.

On view at the Russian Cultural Center through April 15, Dmitry Vyshemirsky: Post is a photo-documentary tour of the artist's home town of Kaliningrad, a city known for its rich and often awkward fusion of German and Russian cultures.

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take the show on the road

FotoFest pairs with Singapore Airlines to keep the Russian art party going

St. Basil's Cathedral
Been There Done That
One of the main sponsors of Fotofest's 2012 Biennial, the Garage Center hasushered in a thriving new era of contemporary art in Moscow.
Photo by Roman Suslov

While FotoFest's Biennial of Russian photography may be behind us, the organization's partnership with Singapore Airlines has left Houstonians with a pair of affordable trip options to Moscow and St. Petersburg.

"The huge number of art museums and palaces in both cities was one of the main reasons we first started our Russia packages 15 years ago," said Edwin Choy of GloboTours, the company that arranges and customizes itineraries for the tours.

Explore Moscow's current art scene at the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture or Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, both of which provided support for Fotofest.

Starting at $2149, the Moscow itinerary offers a six-day, four-night stay at the recently-built Lotte Hotel at the edge of the historic Arbat District, a tangle of old city streets that became home to countless artists and musicians in the 1960s and '70s.

Pre-arranged morning tours of landmarks like the Kremlin and the St. Basil's Cathedral free up afternoons to explore Moscow's current art scene at newer institutions such as the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, a non-profit art space that served as one of the main sponsors of FotoFest 2012 Biennial.

Also not to miss is the Lumiere Brothers Photogallery with its newly-founded Center for Photography, which served as another major supporter for this year's Biennial. One of Russia's first galleries dedicated to Russian fine art photography, Lumiere opened in 2001 to focus on Soviet photographers and photojournalists. A museum, lecture hall and public library were added in 2010.

A second package option that starts at $3399 adds St. Petersburg into the mix with an eight-day, six-night tour covering both cities.

While Moscow represents a more avant-garde spectrum of Russian art, St. Petersburg has been the country's artistic heartbeat since Peter the Great founded the city in 1703 to compete with Europe's greatest cultural centers. While the Hermitage Museum is a must, be sure to see the legendary Pushkinskaya-10 — a hive of contemporary art and music located inside an abandoned Soviet apartment block — as well.

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