The online exhibition is dedicated to the artist Sergei Borisovich Sveshnikov(1959–2012).
The artist entered a creative environment early in life, and it shaped him in many ways. At the turn of the 1970s–1980s, he worked as a sound engineer at the studio of the Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinematography, took part in recording vinyl albums by Sergey Kuryokhin (Children’s Album) and Oleg Butman, and practiced painting.
Sveshnikov became seriously interested in photography in the early 1980s. A turning point in his biography was his encounter with the work of Andy Warhol. His friendship with the renowned St. Petersburg photographer Boris Smelov had a profound influence on his artistic development.
Rock Band Televizor
Leningrad, 1987
From 1981 to 1983, Sergei Sveshnikov studied under one of Leningrad’s leading photographers, Oleg Bakharev. Then, from 1983 to 1989, Sveshnikov worked independently as a photographer at the Leningrad Studio of Popular Science Films. With his participation, more than 20 documentary films were produced by directors Dmitry Delov, Alexander Sidelnikov, Alexander Karpushev, Nikolai Makarov, and others.
In 1984, Sergei Sveshnikov became fascinated with unique methods of hand-made photomechanical printing, techniques that he reconstructed through personal experimentation based on descriptions found in books.
Sveshnikov’s works were published by the Moscow-based publishing house Planeta in the photo albums Ladoga. Before It’s Too Late (1987) and Tragic December (1989).
Sergei Sveshnikov participated in many solo and group exhibitions in Russia and abroad.
Major exhibitions include:
Sveshnikov’s works are held in the collections of ROSPHOTO, the Zverev Center for Contemporary Art (Moscow), as well as in museums and private collections in Russia, Germany, Spain, France, and Scotland.
The online exhibition features the project Identification along with other documentary and artistic photographs from the 1970s–2000s. In addition, visitors can see works from the series Entropy — monochrome photographs hand-colored by the artist; the projects Monrepos and A Walk…, shot on infrared film; and a series of portraits created using the historical bromoil process.
Some believe that by revealing others, we ultimately reveal ourselves — in other words, we engage in a kind of identification. Everyone chooses their own means and methods for this pursuit. Sergei Sveshnikov, the author of the Identification series, chose photography, primarily because he was a well-known photographer and a constant participant in numerous exhibitions and artistic projects. Another compelling reason is the notion that photography possesses a rare ability to show what often escapes the ordinary eye, making it a valuable ally in the process of identification.
The protagonists of this “mega-photo-novel,” as the author describes it, are several well-known creative figures and the photographer himself. When assigning roles, Sveshnikov made sure to depict each subject in a setting and situation characteristic of them. Yet the photographer is not a detached observer, as is often the case, but rather a participant — someone who has inadvertently stepped out of the frame and now looks back at the people he has left within it. Because of this, the images increasingly resemble the gaze of a person glancing over their shoulder at those who remain in the frame.
Every noteworthy work has its own unique key, without which it is impossible to grasp its intention or idea. In our case, that key is memory, which at the same time becomes a symbol, one that, as Roland Barthes believed, belongs exclusively to a single art form: the photographic series. It is memory or, more precisely, nostalgia that can transform the simplest object or thing: an unfinished conversation, a blooming lilac, or a fleeting shadow — into a symbol.
Ultimately, reminiscence turns into an intricate play with time and infinity, a motion along a closed circle in which several storylines, like the face of a clock, like the months of the year, are bound together by pilgrim-heroes who seem to wander from one photograph to another; and the circle itself may suddenly reveal itself as a constant — unchangeable, indivisible, and unmultipliable.
Text for the exhibition “Identification”Elena Zyryanova, 2003
The Entropy series was first presented at an exhibition organized by ROSPHOTO at the Jem Hall Cinema Gallery (St. Petersburg) in 2005. While working on the project, Sergei Sveshnikov documented objects in a state of decay, things destined for oblivion and destruction.
“Cultivated plants and animals,” Sveshnikov reflects, “are no match for wild predators. Objects turn to dust and rust. Ideas are forgotten — or worse, distorted beyond recognition. Human creations cannot evolve on their own. Destruction awaits them, sooner or later. At an urban dump, the process of decay is painless and quick. In a museum or a henhouse, it is tragicomic… We can indeed grant a second life to the remnants of our vast supermarket, provided they are in an acceptable stage of decomposition. A life in art.”
The photographs, shot on black-and-white film, were later hand-colored by the artist with pencils and markers. The objects depicted are recognizable; their form and texture create a complete image, carrying traces of their interaction with the human world that shaped them. They become contemporary ready-mades.
*Entropy, according to the dictionary definition, is a measure of the internal disorder of a system.
The ROSPHOTO collection holds several thousand works by Sergei Sveshnikov. While working with the museum, the artist systematically transferred his legacy into our holdings. Most of the series he created in the last decade of his life are represented in the collection by exhibition prints. Alongside these fully realized authorial works, a special place is occupied by film negatives from different periods. As we explored Sveshnikov’s archive of negatives, we spent many years searching for a way to make sense of the preserved material, thinking about how to systematize and attribute it.
During the scanning of the negatives, we were able to uncover frames long believed to be lost. Unfortunately, there are not many prints from his early period in our archive; however, all of the key early works are represented thanks to the extensive collection of the artist’s negatives. The scanned images from films made at different times often appear quite similar, and only the age of the people depicted makes it clear that decades separate the episodes.
On the film strips we find several repeated frames: often these are photo sessions that would later serve as the basis for hand-worked prints, refined through subtle variations in development, toning, drawing, coloring, layering, and other artistic techniques. This is raw material, preliminary studies for the main artistic project. Nearly all of Sveshnikov’s portrait and genre photography consists of such staged études. Some of them were eventually realized as full artistic projects. They are always acts of posing, always a form of play, involving costumes, makeup, lighting, additional objects, and movement. These sessions are not reportage, not a dynamic recording of life — they are “living pictures.”
Without the original prints, the negatives disclose the scene itself, but not the artist’s creative vision that shaped it.
Despite Sergei Sveshnikov’s characteristic reserve and a certain misanthropy, everyone in his photographs, even incidental passersby, appears open and welcoming. It is as if they themselves are curious to discover who they really are, to see their own beauty from the outside. And in every photograph we sense the trust they placed in the artist.
Some images in the archive remain unattributed, and we invite viewers to join the research process and let us know if you recognize anyone depicted in the photographs.
The prophetic titles of the projects he presented during his lifetime — Entropy and Identification — embody the full meaning of the creative process, as well as of life itself understood as an artistic act. These philosophical categories define both existence and the artist’s path. Surrounded by people yet profoundly alone. Cheerful and melancholic. Always slightly detached, intelligent, and rugged. He did not pretend or construct, he simply conveyed the inner reflection of the subjective.
Last updated on 22.12.2025
Your name:
Your Email:
By clicking "Submit" I agree to the collection and usage of my personal information in the form above This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Поделиться ссылкой на выделенное
Прямая ссылка: