Kharkiv School of Photography: Soviet Censorship to New Aesthetics:
Part 3 - Contemporary Photographers Exhibition 1
© Roman Pyatkovka
Roman Pyatkovka
Roman Pyatkovka (b. 1955) started his engagement with photography in the early 1980′s, became a full time photographer since 1990. (See exhibition 2 for Pyatkovka's 1985 - 2000 work)
The Communal Apartment (2008) is an example of manual coloring technique, favored by Kharkiv artists. These staged images satirize the living conditions of “communal” apartments - a 1920s Soviet invention to force social equality by having several families share the kitchen and the bathroom in a large apartment.
Dating Website (2012) series shows a collaging technique where transparencies with male faces are pasted over prints of nude female models. The series is about “those who are not satisfied with their appearance or life”, who are “happy to use the opportunity to pretend to be someone else”, the artist comments in his statement.
“The Soviet Photo” magazine was the only printed periodical for photographers, both professionals and amateurs, in the USSR from 1926 to 1992. Like any other Soviet publication, it was state-run and heavily political, yet another outlet for Communist propaganda. To get one’s image on its pages was an artistic achievement and a dream cherished by many. The photographs that were published were strictly censored, and Pyatkovka’s brutal imagery of voluptious nudes had, of course, no chance. In 2012 in The Soviet Photo" project he displayed digital montages of his Soviet period nude photos over page scans of the magazine. It was an attempt to reproduce the “overlays” technique using“ found material” and mockingly overcome the remnants of Soviet mentality by ruining the propaganda cliches. It fulfiledl a dream of all the artists at the time - to get one’s work on the magazine pages. The project won the 2013 Sony Photography Award in the Conceptual Photo category.
Later in his ironical Propaganda Poster project (2013) which ridiculed Soviet propagandistic cliches, Pyatkovka repeated this method using Soviet posters.
Portfolios
View Portfolio: Communal Apartment 2008
View Portfolio: Dating Website 2012
View Portfolio: Soviet Photo 2012
View Portfolio: Soviet Posters 2013
We welcome your comments. VASA Exhibitions are the result of various curators, artist, and photographers.