Sergey Bratkov
8 October 2005 - 8 January 2006
Citadelpark
9000 Ghent (Belgium)
T 32 9 221 17 03
F 32 9 221 71 09
E museum.smak [at] gent.be
Image: Sergey Bratkov, The Sailors, 2001. Courtesy Regina Gallery, Moscow.
The oeuvre of Russian photographer Sergej Bratkov (°1960) is strongly influenced by his origin and has roots in Soviet Realism. His work offers a reflection on how current Russian art functions in the context of the post-Soviet era; where artists take a more or less ambiguous attitude with regard to national identity and critically approach the transformation of the former Soviet Union into a capitalist society.
Sergej Bratkov makes series of portraits of various groups of normal people such as labourers, prostitutes, children, soldiers, etc. In his portraits the protagonists transcend their commonplace. Normal people are taken out of their daily context and pictured as heroes or, more precisely, anti-heroes. Bratkovs images are permeated by razor-sharp realism. Behind the portraits lies a collective past that has not yet been dealt with and an individual scepticism towards the future. In his photographs Bratkov criticises both propagandist cliché images of Soviet ideology and stereotypical capitalist mass media poses. The inherent power of the radical realism in his work is remarkable.
The exhibition in the S.M.A.K. shows existing series of photographs as well as an extensive series of newly created work. As part of the exhibitions concept there is a route of a series of light boxes in various locations that symbolise a social or authoritive function, only visible for the people that live or work there.
S.M.A.K.
Opening hours: Tuesday Sunday: 10am 6pm
Free admission: every first Friday of the month between 6 and 10pm.
