Currently little-known movement in Saint Petersburg photography of the last decade of the 20th century
The project includes the exhibition Photoarcheology by Dmitry Vilensky and a collective display of works by Lyudmila Fedorenko and Igor Vasiliev.
From the early 1970s one could notice the increasing number of European artists developing the subject of memory. That trend reached its peak during the period of search for self-identification of the Eastern Bloc countries and the collapse of the Soviet Union. At that time two main approaches to the studying of the subject of memory were introduced: on the one hand, the artists tried to consider and perceive the history and the past within the frames of collective memory, and on the other hand, they lived through the feeling of personal loss of the recent pass. Some of the young Leningrad-based photographers made those approaches their own.
In the 1980s and 1990s Leningrad saw irreversible changes that followed its transformation to Saint Petersburg. All of a sudden, things that seemed to be unshakable were gone forever. Because of those changes many artists felt the need in revaluation of existing values in all spheres of life and art, including photography. At that time the artists who strived to extend the boundaries of the photography’s language and cultural value began to appear in the photographic society; new forms of visuality were actively searched for. Among the photographers who managed to make a sort of time mould of the passing away epoch was Dmitry Vilensky. Dealing with different types of photographic archives photoarcheology appeals to memory which does its best to recreate the picture of the forever gone time from the shatters of reality. The sensation of the age is stressed by certain additional image processing techniques. “For me these methods include the transformation of color range or its complete removal, alterations in the image’s sharpness and structure, in various defects of the emulsion coating, and the marks left by chemical solutions,” says Dmitry Vilensky.
The “photoarcheology” movement was founded by Dmitry Vilensky in the mid 1980s. From 1988 to 1994 Vilensky held a number of solo exhibitions which successively developed the conception of “photography as an archeology of messages to oneself.” It was the display Photoarcheology which took place in New York in 1992 that later gave name to the movement.
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The diversity of additional image processing techniques, which is typical, in general, for many “new wave” photographers of the Saint Petersburg school, is of key importance in the work of Dmitry Vilensky. While working with the original photo archive, he constantly turns to the earlier used subjects continuously creating and revealing new cultural and conceptual layers. The usage of new technical methods in every following series brings the viewers back to these subjects again and again, thus triggering endless reminiscences.
Fedorenko Lyudmila Alexandrovna born 10 March 1961 in Krasnodar. Between 1979 and 1986, she studied at the Leningrad Mining Institute. From the early 1980s until the mid-1990s, worked at the photographic lab of the Glavleningradstroy Design and Engineering Institute and did architectural, art reproduction, genre and portrait photography. In 1984, she began attending the Zerkalo photo club at the Karl Marx DK. In 1986, she opened her first solo exhibition, entitled Fifty Three Photographs. In May 1986, upon submitting her “creative report”, she was admitted as a member of the Zerkalo photo club. In 1987, because of her close contacts with the TAK group, she began to attend Zerkalo’s meetings less frequently. In 1988, she became a member of the Fotogalereya (Photo Gallery) art association. As such, she took part in the construction of Interfotogalereya, the first gallery dedicated to photography in Leningrad. In 1992, she became a member of the Photopostscriptum association. In 1995, after the exhibition Photo-Reclamation: New Art from Moscow and Saint Petersburg, organized by the curator B. Tailor at the John Hansard Gallery in London, she quit professional photography. Between 1995 and 1997, her works were displayed in the Peterburgskaya Fotoarkheologiya (Petersburg Photoarchaeology) exhibition project.
Lyudmila Fedorenko’s artistic manner is characterized by the project-oriented vision and large series of works which explores amateur photography within the historical context of personal memory.
Igor Vasiliev uses the original photographic archive as a building block to create unique art pieces and applies a variety of photographic and painting techniques, such as toning, collage, coloring, ornamenting, etc. Igor Vasiliev was born in 1966 in the town of Nesterov in the Kaliningrad oblast. In 1990–91 he was a member of the group “The Institute of New Photography.” From 1992 to 1996 he was a member of the “Photopostscriptum” association founded by Dmitry Vilensky. In 1995–97 Vasiliev took part in The Petersburg Photoarcheology projects.
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