Exhibitions for 2012 Biennial
Contemporary Russian Photography: 1950s–2012
Mar 16 – Apr 29, 2012
Houston, Texas, U.S.A.
FotoFest announces the Russian exhibitions for its 2012 Biennial Contemporary Russian Photography, which opens in Houston, Texas, on March 16, 2012 and will be on view through April 29, 2012. The Biennial explores modern and contemporary Russian photographic history over the last five decades, from the post-Stalinist period of the 1950s to the present day.
The FotoFest 2012 Biennial is the Fourteenth International Biennial of Photography and Photo-related Art, and it is the United States’ first and longest-running international photographic art event. Event and visitor information is available on the FotoFest website at www.fotofest.org/2012biennial.
FOTOFEST 2012 BIENNIAL EXHIBITIONS – CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN PHOTOGRAPHY
The exhibitions present three periods of Russian modern and contemporary photography, with 800 historic and contemporary works including classical photography, video and mixed-media installations from 142 artists: After Stalin, “The Thaw”, The Re-emergence of the Personal Voice (1950s-1970s), Perestroika, Liberalization and Experimentation (1980s-2010), and The Young Generation (2009-2012). Of the works, on loan from private collections and the archives of the artists themselves, many are being shown for the first time outside of Russia. These exhibitions are accompanied by a special exhibition of Soviet photojournalists who were winners of World Press Photo Awards from 1950-1991.
An international team of curators from Russia and the United States has organized the main Biennial exhibitions. The Russian curators are Evgeny Berezner, head of the “In Support of Photography in Russia” Project, The Iris Foundation, Moscow; Irina Chmyreva, Senior Researcher at the Russian Academy of Fine Arts; and Natalia Tarasova, a writer and cultural affairs consultant for the “In Support of Photography in Russia” Project. The Russian curators are joined by Wendy Watriss, Senior Curator and Artistic Director of FotoFest.
After Stalin, “The Thaw”, The Re-emergence of the Personal Voice – The late 1950s-1970s
With Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 and the rise to power of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet government opened a period of episodic reforms that became known as “The Thaw.” Between alternating years of openness and years of constriction, artists managed to find independent avenues for self-expression. In twenty-five years of complex shifts in the political, cultural and economic life of the Soviet Union, there was space for the development of a personal voice, even in one of the most closely supervised areas of Soviet culture – photography.
Many of the works in this section of the Russian exhibitions are vintage photographic prints on loan from private collectors Natalia Grigorieva and Edward Litvinsky, founders and owners of the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography in Moscow, founded in conjunction with one of the first private galleries in Russia devoted to fine art photography. Other works come from members of Novator, one of the most important and enduring of the independent Russian photography associations, founded in the early 1960s by individual photographers and photography lovers in Russia.
Perestroika, Liberalization and Experimentation – The mid/late 1980s-2010
The mid/late 1980s and the 1990s were a period of profound transition for the Soviet Union. The well-known reform movements Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (economic restructuring) changed the country irrevocably and ultimately set the stage for the dissolution of the Soviet Union. These movements vastly expanded the cultural openings of the previous decades. The 1980s and 1990s brought about the dissolution of state censorship and extraordinary opportunities were created for an open examination of Soviet and Russian society. The 1990s were a decade of unregulated capitalist growth that created a class of newly affluent business people and consumers of mass culture.
Photography and other art forms saw a burst of creative energy and multi-faceted experimentalism that moved in many different directions. The first years of Perestroika were marked by hope. Artists not only re-interpreted all aspects of Soviet political language and life, but they also often moved art into non-traditional spaces, bringing it directly to the public. Later, with the ensuing political and economic chaos of the mid 1990s, artists became more openly critical, confronting traditional Soviet mores and parodying the external realities of Soviet-Russian life and ideology. In the early 21st century, as the heady and often violent conditions of change began to stabilize, many artists turned toward aesthetic and metaphysical explorations of photography itself. It was a twenty-five year period of remarkable diversity and creativity in Russian photography.
The Young Generation – 2007-2012
Unlike their predecessors, the young generation of Russian artists today has little direct experience with Soviet Communism. Growing up after its collapse, they began their careers as part of a globally-connected, consumerist and individual-oriented society. Although some have the means to leave Russia to study art in Western Europe and the U.S., many others continue to work inside Russia. In contrast to the sharply ironic and outward-looking artists of the Perestroika periods, younger artists are looking inward, immersed in their own personal experiences and the psychological dilemmas of growing up in modern-day Russia.
FotoFest 2012 Biennial Contemporary Russian Photography exhibitions begin March 16 and continue through April 29, 2012 with programming for the public occurring every week. The full program is available online at www.fotofest.org/2012biennial.
FotoFest is co-publishing the two-volume 2012 Biennial Catalogue with European publisher Schilt Publishing (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). The 500-page catalogue features more than 300 full-color images by Russian artists and essays by Russian Curators Evgeny Berezner and Irina Chmyreva on the history of contemporary Russian photography, the re-emergence and evolution of the personal voice in Russian art photography in the late 1950s and the end of Stalinism through the Perestroika years into the present.
FotoFest’s 2012 International Fine Print Auction, on Tuesday, March 20, will present vintage and contemporary prints by 25 leading Russian artists from the 1960s to the present. It is the first time that most of these works will be available to the U.S. and international markets. The works are carefully selected by the FotoFest and Russian curators, and donated by the artists. In conjunction with the Fine Print Auction, FotoFest is planning special programs for Photography Collectors, March 19-20, 2012.
Russian Partners for the FotoFest Biennial programs are: The Iris Art Foundation; Garage Center for Contemporary Culture; ROSIZO State Center for Museums and Exhibitions of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation; Russian International News and Information Agency RIA Novosti; Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, Moscow; CANON Ru, LLC; Cultural Project “RUSS PRESS PHOTO”, Moscow; Russian Chamber of Commerce of Texas; Russian Cultural Center “Our Texas”.
Special support for the Russian programs has been received from Singapore Airlines, the Official Airlines of the FotoFest 2012 Biennial – Russia, and The Trust for Mutual Understanding, New York.
For Information and Visuals: Vinod Hopson, Press Coordinator, +1 713.223.5522 ext 26, press@fotofest.org
Elizabeth Reina-Longoria or Rachel Patall-David, Blue Medium, +1 212.675.1800, elizabeth@bluemedium.com / rachel@bluemedium.com