Igor Savchenko's œuvre can be regarded primarily as practice in research and development of “proto-photography”, based on the idea of reproduction of an original image. This practice results in returning to the image in its purity and anonymity, in crossing the conventional boundaries of genre, tradition, cultural determinacy.

The exhibition in ROSPHOTO includes photographs created by Igor Savchenko in the turning period of his work, when in search of new artistic language he gradually shifted from visual to verbal expression of his ideas. When he realized the time has come for “change of instrument”, Savchenko left photography for a long time.

“As texts about photography appeared, it became clear that I am interested in something that cannot be expressed by the means of photography… When things you want to say cannot be created with one instrument you have to take another one, the one that fits better to your needs. It was possible to expand the corpus of works, to continue exploring the length and breadth of the field I had delineated. I did not want that. It was self-plagiarism for me”.