The Missing Picture: Alternative Contemporary Photography in the Soviet Union

-
Photographs of all different subjects and sizes line the gallery walls. Images range from objects to portraits.  

Installation view, The Missing Picture: Alternative Contemporary Photography in the Soviet Union, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 1990.

Location
Hayden & Reference Galleries
Featured Artists
Vladimir Kupreanov
Ilya Piganov
Maria Serebrjekova
Alexey Shulgin
Explore all artists who have exhibited at the List in our Artist Index.

This exhibition, organized in collaboration with SOYUZKHUDOZEXPORT in Moscow, features the work of four contemporary Russian artists selected by guest curator John Jacob.

The artists address the ideological functions of the photographic medium within contemporary Soviet culture. Their work offers the means to understand the historical relationship between past and present uses of photography. This group refutes the established western notion of Soviet photography as predominantly photojournalistic or dominated exclusively by a Socialist Realist aesthetic. 

Publication available. Illustrated catalogue with essays by John Jacob and Tatiana Salzirn.

Sponsors

This exhibition is supported in part by the Trust for Mutual Understanding, New York, and the Soros Foundation, New York. 

Images

Portraits are installed on the wall in an accordion style. Every other image folds away from the wall to back into the wall. 
Photographs are displayed in a number of ways in the gallery. Some are hung, in cases or in books.
Photographs line the walls of the gallery space. Photos are grouped with others in their series or are in display cases. 
Black and white photographs are hung in a row along the wall. Each depicts a different landscape image. 
Photographs line the walls of the gallery. Photos are grouped together with others in their series or are framed together. 
Photographs of all different subjects and sizes line the gallery walls. Images range from objects to portraits.  

Related Publication

The Missing Picture: Alternative Contemporary Photography from the Soviet Union

1990, MIT List Visual Arts Center

View publication

Book cover for The Missing Picture: Alternative Contemporary Photography from the Soviet Union features chalkboard textured lettering and sepia photos.

More Exhibitions