Yesterday gallery of classic and contemporary photography, "Eye" opened a photo exhibition of the XX century. The image of the human body in their work - an attempt to understand the nature and essence of man

Alexander Grinberg No title. 1920
Source: Press Release Gallery "Eye»


Sergey Borisov on the balcony. 2003

Gallery "Eye", June 29 - July 23, 2011

Today at 19 o'clock gallery "The Eye" (Malaya Ordynka, 23) opens the exhibition "Body Language", which includes the work of more than a dozen photographs taken throughout the twentieth century. All these photos are united by one theme - the attempt to portray the human body and thus to realize the nature and essence of man.

Chronologically, the exhibition begins with works by one of the greatest photographers of the 1920s and 30s Alexander Grinberg . He shot a lot of the human body, from the famous series "The Art of Movement" to the numerous portraits of naked women. Now it seems that in its erotic nude models and a no no. They are graceful, elegant and rather chaste than enticing. Yet precisely because of such images in the thirties, Greenberg was convicted of distributing pornography.

in the exhibition included a large number of works Baltic photographers. This school in the Soviet era was one of the most powerful, but when it came to pictures of nudes, and one of the most daring. In a country where formal art reigned, and any deviation from the baseline could be punished for the artists image of the human body was not so much a way of expression, as an attempt to demonstrate to protest, to break away from the system. In addition, many photos from this part of the exhibition is very similar to what is commonly now called the "intimate picture." Where everything was shared, this photo was the only way to show something personal, individual, and what was left in my life.

This exhibition would have been impossible without the work of Sergei Borisov . His portraits of nude models (many of whom were themselves emblematic of the time artists, actors or writers) made during the restructuring, show us an exciting, but rather painful process of searching for identity. Nudity has become a way of expression, a tool that helps to find himself in a difficult historical and cultural contexts.

most recent work (early 2000) included in the exhibition belong to the photographer, Alexander Kitaev. In these works, the body becomes an artistic tool, like a brush or a filter. It loses its original meaning, it says nothing about the man himself.

This exhibition end shows us which way was picture depicting the human body in Russia over the past century. Of metaphor and lyricism Greenberg, through intimate photographs 1970-80s, through the social work of Sergey Borisov to almost abstract photographs by Alexander Kitaev.

Source : gallery press release, "Eye »