Translated material
Photo exhibitions in Moscow
The second plot, supported by Nescafe, will make happy or angry those who managed to visit the sea this summer only in sweet dreams. In the halls of the MDF, “Beach Romance” is presented - photographs of places of public relaxation from 1900 to 2000. Unexpectedly, the result was a conceptual project on the theme of the collective body and gender identity. The caramel eroticism of staged photographs with cutesy ladies in striped suits and butterfly bows gave way to the brutal sexism of the Soviet 20s, the era of new plasticism, constructivism, Komsomol members and athletes Deineka, Samokhvalov. From the 30s until perestroika, we know we didn’t have sex. And the photographs honestly reflected this. Stooped backs, angular poses, unkempt bodies, everyone is pressed against each other, as if in a pioneer camp before the Fall. There are two leitmotifs in the new beach photograph. The first is new Russian love under the slogan “Man, are we resting or what?” The second is voyeurism caused by all sorts of gender perversions and anomalies, both of the models and of the photographer himself, the model taking pictures. Both trends reflect a common idea for our society: we want to live in a new way, but we don’t know how.
A possible answer to the question of the relevance of norms of taste is offered by the exhibition of the Kino gallery entitled “Nudes”. Contrary to the total sex industry, photographers Maxim Zheleznyakov, Mikhail Kalamkarov and Alexey Kolmykov strive to return the image of the Beautiful Lady to art. That’s why they stylize their shooting method as impressionistic painting with blurred contours, flickering haze, and a haze of light. And - take my word for it - the result is much more exciting than the nudes of today's frank magazines.
To conclude the review, there is one more photo exhibition at the long-suffering Museum and Public Center named after Andrei Sakharov. The darkness and hypnosis of the time of developed socialism in the 60s and 80s became the subjects of photographs by Mikhail Dashevsky, a self-taught master, Doctor of Technical Sciences, and a specialist in vibration protection of buildings. He took pictures at the table. His impartial eye saw and recorded the little things in life, the presentation of which in the Brezhnev era threatened a lot. Today Dashevsky's works are exhibited at the Sakharov Center. There is hope that the artist will not be sued.