Contemporary Photography in France: Between Theory and Practice, 2022
This compelling publication traces the broad arc of photography’s development in France from the ... more This compelling publication traces the broad arc of photography’s development in France from the 1970s to the present day. A decade-by-decade account reveals unexpected points of convergence between practices that are not usually considered in a comparative perspective. These include photographic practices in contemporary art, documentary, photojournalism, and fashion. Author Olga Smith sets these practices in dialogue with French philosophy – the writings of Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, and Jacques Rancière – to produce an innovative study of the intersections between the photographic image, text, practice, and theory. This analysis is guided by an understanding of photography as deeply engaged with historical, cultural, and intellectual events that defined French national experience in the contemporary period. Landscape provides a particular focus to study issues of key significance, including national identification, colonial past, legacies of modernization and environmental breakdown.
Memory has always been crucial to French literature and culture as a means of mediating the relat... more Memory has always been crucial to French literature and culture as a means of mediating the relationship between perception and knowledge of the individual coming to terms with his identity in time. Relatively recently, memory has also emerged as the key force in the creation of a collective consciousness in the wider perspective of French cultural history. This collection of essays, selected from the proceedings of a seminar on 'Memory' given by Dr Emma Wilson at the University of Cambridge, offers a fresh evaluation of memory as both a cultural and an individual phenomenon in modern and contemporary French culture, including literature, cinema and the visual arts. 'Anamnesia', the book's title, develops the Aristotelian concept of anamnesis: recollection as a dynamic and creative process, which includes forgetting as much as remembering, concealment as much as imagination. Memory in this extremely diverse range of essays is therefore far from being presented as a straightforward process of recalling the past, but emerges as the site of research and renegotiation, of contradictions and even aporia.
This interview with British photographer John Davies traces the development of the artist's caree... more This interview with British photographer John Davies traces the development of the artist's career from the 1970s to the present day, with a particular focus on his engagement with the subject of landscape representation in the urban context. The interview highlights a number of key aspects of Davies's practice, including the use of the high vantage point and geographical maps, and discusses the social and cultural implications of designating landscape as a product of historical process.
This article analyses recent photographic practices that make visible underlying realities faced ... more This article analyses recent photographic practices that make visible underlying realities faced by Western societies today as they struggle to reconcile contradictions between their policies on race, immigration and ethnicity and the quest for an integrated national identity. The main case studies are drawn from the works of Mohamed Bourouissa and Tobias Zielony. The article demonstrates how their photographic projects confront the logic of social and cultural marginalisation of the immigrant communities, which often overlaps with their spatial consignment to urban peripheries. By combining reality and fiction, symbolism and documentation, these projects offer alternatives to the modes of representation available in photojournalism, as well as re-connecting with the genre of street photography.
This essay considers Christian Boltanski’s engagement with photography in the 1970s, at a time wh... more This essay considers Christian Boltanski’s engagement with photography in the 1970s, at a time when its circulation was still largely confined to the realms of amateur practice. However, this was also the period that prepared the eventual acceptance of photography as a form of art, thereby raising questions regarding the function and the status of the artist-photographer. These issues were explored by Boltanski in his series Images modèles (1973-1975) and his playful and sometimes knowingly false autobiographic reconstructions. His engagement with the polemic surrounding the institution of authorship, as articulated by Roland Barthes in ‘The Death of the Author’ (1968), is interpreted in the context of intellectual, historical and artistic events in France in the 1960s-1970s. In so doing an evaluation is offered of Boltanski’s contribution to the history of photography, while challenging a number of dominant critical approaches to this artist’s work.
Article in Pierre-Henry Frangne and Patricia Limido (eds), Les inventions photographiques du pays... more Article in Pierre-Henry Frangne and Patricia Limido (eds), Les inventions photographiques du paysage, du XIXe siècle à nos jours (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016), pp. 49-59
Zusammenfassung
In diesem Aufsatz betrachten wir die Unvollendete Dissertation (1984), ein Werk ... more Zusammenfassung
In diesem Aufsatz betrachten wir die Unvollendete Dissertation (1984), ein Werk des ukrainischen Fotografen Boris Michailov, als Dokument der spätsowjetischen Zeit. Dabei verfolgen wir die vom Künstler selbst in diesem Werk angedeuteten Spur zu Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie weiter, indem wir Michailovs fotografische Arbeit als phänomenologische Untersuchung der eigenen Person in der rückwirkend als Stagnation (auf Russisch: Sastoi) bezeichneten Zeit fassen. Als “Auto-Phänomenologe” übt sich Michailov in der Rolle des Fotoliebhabers, einer sowohl idealtypisch zu denkenden, als auch sozial konstruierten Identität der sowjetischen Gesellschaft. Indem er die Epoche im Verhältnis von Zeit und Selbst darstellt, erfordert er auch einen nuancierteren Blick auf die oft durch den Gegensatz zwischen offizieller und nonkoformistischer Kunst definierte spätsowjetische Gesellschaft.
Abstract
In this article, we propose to position a work by Ukranian photographer Boris Mikhailov, Unfinished Dissertation (1984) in the culture of the photo-amateur in order to gain a more nuanced understanding of the uses of photography in the last Soviet decade. This analysis allows us to study the historic fabric of the last decade of the Soviet period known as zastoi, and to disrupt the received dichotomy between official and nonconformist art.
"This article unravels the complex dynamics between the human body and urban environment in the w... more "This article unravels the complex dynamics between the human body and urban environment in the work of French photographer Valérie Jouve. Focussing on a number of works drawn from the series Les Personnages and Les Façades, I propose the notion of containment to be crucial for the study of Jouve’s urban portraits. I first approach it as a matter of containment of the human body by civic and architectural structures of the city, and then as a matter of containing the space of representation within a photographic frame. Theoretical discourse of the 'tableau' provides the main analytical framework for this paper.
The series comprises of photographs posted to online hosting website Flickr. Schmid selected a ce... more The series comprises of photographs posted to online hosting website Flickr. Schmid selected a certain number, following the pattern of daily uploads from the different time zones. He then arranged these images in themed collections, under the neutral titles such as “Things”, “Shoes”, “Dogs” or “Fauna”, or somewhat humorous “Faces in Holes”, “Various Accidents” and “Cleavages”. For Schmid, “these groupings reveal recurring patterns in modern popular photography. The selection of themes is neither systematic nor does it follow any established criteria – the project’s structure mirrors the multifaceted, contradictory and chaotic practice of modern photography itself.” This practice, rigorous and arbitrary in equal measure, yielded what can be described an encyclopaedia of modern- day vernacular photography. The form of the slide projection gives a new lease of life to images that were only meant to be seen once and then forgotten, inviting the viewer to experience them in real time, in the act of extended observation.
Published in Il Presente. Fotografia: Festival Internazionale di Roma, curated by Marco Delogu (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2015),
Grief, anger and despair were the only possible emotional responses to the brutality of the terro... more Grief, anger and despair were the only possible emotional responses to the brutality of the terrorist attacks in Paris last month that left 130 dead and many more wounded. Less than a month later, French right-wing parties successfully converted these emotions into voting results: in the first round of departmental elections in France on the 6 December, the extreme-right Front National gained unprecedented one third of the votes, while the centre-right Republicans party (formerly the UMP) polled just under 27%. Both parties expanded their support base on the platform of anti-immigration.
In a culture increasingly obsessed with the visual, self-image and extreme self-exposure, in whic... more In a culture increasingly obsessed with the visual, self-image and extreme self-exposure, in which reality is constantly obscured and misrepresented through concealment and spin, the roles display and disguise play in literature, thought and visual culture are particularly prescient. This collection, developed from papers presented at a postgraduate conference in Oxford in September 2008, presents a coherent view of key developments in the notions of display and disguise in French culture and provides a thought-provoking contribution to contemporary criticism. The volume includes essays from both senior researchers and graduate students using close readings and theoretical approaches from the psychoanalytic to the postcolonial. These are arranged in four main sections, dealing with notions of performance, disclosure, illusion and concealment respectively. Drawing on new research in a wide range of periods, in fields including art, photography, theatre, travel writing and the novel, the authors consider the notions of display and disguise in relation to works by artists such as Molière, Flaubert, Proust, Dalí, Vinaver and Sophie Calle.
Published in Peter Collier, Anna Elsner and Olga Smith (eds), 'Anamnesia: Private and Public Memo... more Published in Peter Collier, Anna Elsner and Olga Smith (eds), 'Anamnesia: Private and Public Memory in Modern French Culture (Peter Lang: 2009)
French artist Jean-Marc Bustmante has been described as ‘a photographer deeply engaged with sculp... more French artist Jean-Marc Bustmante has been described as ‘a photographer deeply engaged with sculpture, whose sculptures, like his photographs, are often closely tied to painting’ (K. Siegel: 2011). This quality, I argue, makes him paradigmatic of a significant tendency in contemporary art: to move with ease between different media, exploring the limits of one through another. This paper surveys three decades of Bustamante’s work in photography, beginning with a series of large-scale photographs of urban peripheries entitled Tableaux (1978-1982). The significance of this work, unacknowledged in Anglo-American criticism, is that it proposed the form of the ‘tableau’ as means of overcoming the legacy of Conceptual art by positively reclaiming medium specificity for photography, thereby giving it legitimacy as a form of artistic expression. At the same time, Tableaux, as well as the subsequent series Stationnaire (1990-1991) and Something is Missing (1995-present) are not constituted by the characteristic qualities of the photographic medium in that their effect and mode of operation often overlaps with such media as sculpture and painting. But if Bustmante’s work could be upheld as an example of art whose specificity is no longer tied to materials or methods, as per Rosalind Krauss’s schema of the expanded field, it does not fit ‘the post-medium condition’ as its expansion is limited to ‘a cultural field of codes’. Too closely tied to the postmodern project, these paradigms now appear outmoded, demanding new interpretations of the current media expansion, including in the art of Bustamante. Interpretations that not only express the complexity of the relationship of the image to reality but also challenge us to think beyond media-specific categories.
Contemporary Photography in France: Between Theory and Practice, 2022
This compelling publication traces the broad arc of photography’s development in France from the ... more This compelling publication traces the broad arc of photography’s development in France from the 1970s to the present day. A decade-by-decade account reveals unexpected points of convergence between practices that are not usually considered in a comparative perspective. These include photographic practices in contemporary art, documentary, photojournalism, and fashion. Author Olga Smith sets these practices in dialogue with French philosophy – the writings of Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, and Jacques Rancière – to produce an innovative study of the intersections between the photographic image, text, practice, and theory. This analysis is guided by an understanding of photography as deeply engaged with historical, cultural, and intellectual events that defined French national experience in the contemporary period. Landscape provides a particular focus to study issues of key significance, including national identification, colonial past, legacies of modernization and environmental breakdown.
Memory has always been crucial to French literature and culture as a means of mediating the relat... more Memory has always been crucial to French literature and culture as a means of mediating the relationship between perception and knowledge of the individual coming to terms with his identity in time. Relatively recently, memory has also emerged as the key force in the creation of a collective consciousness in the wider perspective of French cultural history. This collection of essays, selected from the proceedings of a seminar on 'Memory' given by Dr Emma Wilson at the University of Cambridge, offers a fresh evaluation of memory as both a cultural and an individual phenomenon in modern and contemporary French culture, including literature, cinema and the visual arts. 'Anamnesia', the book's title, develops the Aristotelian concept of anamnesis: recollection as a dynamic and creative process, which includes forgetting as much as remembering, concealment as much as imagination. Memory in this extremely diverse range of essays is therefore far from being presented as a straightforward process of recalling the past, but emerges as the site of research and renegotiation, of contradictions and even aporia.
This interview with British photographer John Davies traces the development of the artist's caree... more This interview with British photographer John Davies traces the development of the artist's career from the 1970s to the present day, with a particular focus on his engagement with the subject of landscape representation in the urban context. The interview highlights a number of key aspects of Davies's practice, including the use of the high vantage point and geographical maps, and discusses the social and cultural implications of designating landscape as a product of historical process.
This article analyses recent photographic practices that make visible underlying realities faced ... more This article analyses recent photographic practices that make visible underlying realities faced by Western societies today as they struggle to reconcile contradictions between their policies on race, immigration and ethnicity and the quest for an integrated national identity. The main case studies are drawn from the works of Mohamed Bourouissa and Tobias Zielony. The article demonstrates how their photographic projects confront the logic of social and cultural marginalisation of the immigrant communities, which often overlaps with their spatial consignment to urban peripheries. By combining reality and fiction, symbolism and documentation, these projects offer alternatives to the modes of representation available in photojournalism, as well as re-connecting with the genre of street photography.
This essay considers Christian Boltanski’s engagement with photography in the 1970s, at a time wh... more This essay considers Christian Boltanski’s engagement with photography in the 1970s, at a time when its circulation was still largely confined to the realms of amateur practice. However, this was also the period that prepared the eventual acceptance of photography as a form of art, thereby raising questions regarding the function and the status of the artist-photographer. These issues were explored by Boltanski in his series Images modèles (1973-1975) and his playful and sometimes knowingly false autobiographic reconstructions. His engagement with the polemic surrounding the institution of authorship, as articulated by Roland Barthes in ‘The Death of the Author’ (1968), is interpreted in the context of intellectual, historical and artistic events in France in the 1960s-1970s. In so doing an evaluation is offered of Boltanski’s contribution to the history of photography, while challenging a number of dominant critical approaches to this artist’s work.
Article in Pierre-Henry Frangne and Patricia Limido (eds), Les inventions photographiques du pays... more Article in Pierre-Henry Frangne and Patricia Limido (eds), Les inventions photographiques du paysage, du XIXe siècle à nos jours (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016), pp. 49-59
Zusammenfassung
In diesem Aufsatz betrachten wir die Unvollendete Dissertation (1984), ein Werk ... more Zusammenfassung
In diesem Aufsatz betrachten wir die Unvollendete Dissertation (1984), ein Werk des ukrainischen Fotografen Boris Michailov, als Dokument der spätsowjetischen Zeit. Dabei verfolgen wir die vom Künstler selbst in diesem Werk angedeuteten Spur zu Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie weiter, indem wir Michailovs fotografische Arbeit als phänomenologische Untersuchung der eigenen Person in der rückwirkend als Stagnation (auf Russisch: Sastoi) bezeichneten Zeit fassen. Als “Auto-Phänomenologe” übt sich Michailov in der Rolle des Fotoliebhabers, einer sowohl idealtypisch zu denkenden, als auch sozial konstruierten Identität der sowjetischen Gesellschaft. Indem er die Epoche im Verhältnis von Zeit und Selbst darstellt, erfordert er auch einen nuancierteren Blick auf die oft durch den Gegensatz zwischen offizieller und nonkoformistischer Kunst definierte spätsowjetische Gesellschaft.
Abstract
In this article, we propose to position a work by Ukranian photographer Boris Mikhailov, Unfinished Dissertation (1984) in the culture of the photo-amateur in order to gain a more nuanced understanding of the uses of photography in the last Soviet decade. This analysis allows us to study the historic fabric of the last decade of the Soviet period known as zastoi, and to disrupt the received dichotomy between official and nonconformist art.
"This article unravels the complex dynamics between the human body and urban environment in the w... more "This article unravels the complex dynamics between the human body and urban environment in the work of French photographer Valérie Jouve. Focussing on a number of works drawn from the series Les Personnages and Les Façades, I propose the notion of containment to be crucial for the study of Jouve’s urban portraits. I first approach it as a matter of containment of the human body by civic and architectural structures of the city, and then as a matter of containing the space of representation within a photographic frame. Theoretical discourse of the 'tableau' provides the main analytical framework for this paper.
The series comprises of photographs posted to online hosting website Flickr. Schmid selected a ce... more The series comprises of photographs posted to online hosting website Flickr. Schmid selected a certain number, following the pattern of daily uploads from the different time zones. He then arranged these images in themed collections, under the neutral titles such as “Things”, “Shoes”, “Dogs” or “Fauna”, or somewhat humorous “Faces in Holes”, “Various Accidents” and “Cleavages”. For Schmid, “these groupings reveal recurring patterns in modern popular photography. The selection of themes is neither systematic nor does it follow any established criteria – the project’s structure mirrors the multifaceted, contradictory and chaotic practice of modern photography itself.” This practice, rigorous and arbitrary in equal measure, yielded what can be described an encyclopaedia of modern- day vernacular photography. The form of the slide projection gives a new lease of life to images that were only meant to be seen once and then forgotten, inviting the viewer to experience them in real time, in the act of extended observation.
Published in Il Presente. Fotografia: Festival Internazionale di Roma, curated by Marco Delogu (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2015),
Grief, anger and despair were the only possible emotional responses to the brutality of the terro... more Grief, anger and despair were the only possible emotional responses to the brutality of the terrorist attacks in Paris last month that left 130 dead and many more wounded. Less than a month later, French right-wing parties successfully converted these emotions into voting results: in the first round of departmental elections in France on the 6 December, the extreme-right Front National gained unprecedented one third of the votes, while the centre-right Republicans party (formerly the UMP) polled just under 27%. Both parties expanded their support base on the platform of anti-immigration.
In a culture increasingly obsessed with the visual, self-image and extreme self-exposure, in whic... more In a culture increasingly obsessed with the visual, self-image and extreme self-exposure, in which reality is constantly obscured and misrepresented through concealment and spin, the roles display and disguise play in literature, thought and visual culture are particularly prescient. This collection, developed from papers presented at a postgraduate conference in Oxford in September 2008, presents a coherent view of key developments in the notions of display and disguise in French culture and provides a thought-provoking contribution to contemporary criticism. The volume includes essays from both senior researchers and graduate students using close readings and theoretical approaches from the psychoanalytic to the postcolonial. These are arranged in four main sections, dealing with notions of performance, disclosure, illusion and concealment respectively. Drawing on new research in a wide range of periods, in fields including art, photography, theatre, travel writing and the novel, the authors consider the notions of display and disguise in relation to works by artists such as Molière, Flaubert, Proust, Dalí, Vinaver and Sophie Calle.
Published in Peter Collier, Anna Elsner and Olga Smith (eds), 'Anamnesia: Private and Public Memo... more Published in Peter Collier, Anna Elsner and Olga Smith (eds), 'Anamnesia: Private and Public Memory in Modern French Culture (Peter Lang: 2009)
French artist Jean-Marc Bustmante has been described as ‘a photographer deeply engaged with sculp... more French artist Jean-Marc Bustmante has been described as ‘a photographer deeply engaged with sculpture, whose sculptures, like his photographs, are often closely tied to painting’ (K. Siegel: 2011). This quality, I argue, makes him paradigmatic of a significant tendency in contemporary art: to move with ease between different media, exploring the limits of one through another. This paper surveys three decades of Bustamante’s work in photography, beginning with a series of large-scale photographs of urban peripheries entitled Tableaux (1978-1982). The significance of this work, unacknowledged in Anglo-American criticism, is that it proposed the form of the ‘tableau’ as means of overcoming the legacy of Conceptual art by positively reclaiming medium specificity for photography, thereby giving it legitimacy as a form of artistic expression. At the same time, Tableaux, as well as the subsequent series Stationnaire (1990-1991) and Something is Missing (1995-present) are not constituted by the characteristic qualities of the photographic medium in that their effect and mode of operation often overlaps with such media as sculpture and painting. But if Bustmante’s work could be upheld as an example of art whose specificity is no longer tied to materials or methods, as per Rosalind Krauss’s schema of the expanded field, it does not fit ‘the post-medium condition’ as its expansion is limited to ‘a cultural field of codes’. Too closely tied to the postmodern project, these paradigms now appear outmoded, demanding new interpretations of the current media expansion, including in the art of Bustamante. Interpretations that not only express the complexity of the relationship of the image to reality but also challenge us to think beyond media-specific categories.
‘Pictures’ is a word that has become synonymous with photographs, encompassing vernacular uses of... more ‘Pictures’ is a word that has become synonymous with photographs, encompassing vernacular uses of photography, as in the library of ‘pictures’ on our mobile phones, as well as in the sense of providing a true ‘picture of events’ in the journalist context. From the 1980s, photography as ‘picture’ acquired a very different meaning, and was associated with large-scale colour photographic prints, pioneered by such artists as Jean-Marc Bustamante. Simultaneously, pictorial values have been proclaimed crucial to asserting photography’s place in the museum as an object confident of its value as art. This panel examines the effect of these changes on the photographic practice, their effect on the curatorial practices and, more broadly, photography as a form of contemporary art. Speakers: Jean-Marc Bustamante, Joanna Lowry, Tamara Trodd. Chair: Olga Smith
This paper focuses on a series of artist’s books produced by French contemporary artist Christian... more This paper focuses on a series of artist’s books produced by French contemporary artist Christian Boltanski in the period 1969-1972. Made with great regard for costs with photocopied photographs and typed captions, and printed on paper of inferior quality, these books were made at a time when no museum in France disposed of a budget to support living French artists, while the private art market was similarly stagnant. I argue that the choice of poor materials was only in part dictated by material circumstances: within art historical perspective, they expressed the artist’s ambition ‘to escape the heavy and paralyzing mantle of France’s rich artistic past’ (Lynn Gumpert, 1994). Boltanski achieved this aim by adopting deliberately unskilled methods of art-making, partially in response to Guy Debord’s appeal to displace control over labour in The Society of the Spectacle (1968). Further to this, the limited edition of only several hundred copies has been determined by mail art dissemination strategies adopted by Boltanski in a bid to transgress traditional circuits for making and exhibiting art.
In this paper we position a work by Ukranian photographer Boris Mikhailov, Unfinished Dissertatio... more In this paper we position a work by Ukranian photographer Boris Mikhailov, Unfinished Dissertation (1984) in the culture of the photo-amateur in order to gain a more nuanced understanding of the uses of photography in the last Soviet decade in Russia.
Pqper presented at the International Workshop at the German Historical Institute Moscow in cooperation with the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) “Threatened Orders” of Tübingen University
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Books by Olga Smith
Articles by Olga Smith
In diesem Aufsatz betrachten wir die Unvollendete Dissertation (1984), ein Werk des ukrainischen Fotografen Boris Michailov, als Dokument der spätsowjetischen Zeit. Dabei verfolgen wir die vom Künstler selbst in diesem Werk angedeuteten Spur zu Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie weiter, indem wir Michailovs fotografische Arbeit als phänomenologische Untersuchung der eigenen Person in der rückwirkend als Stagnation (auf Russisch: Sastoi) bezeichneten Zeit fassen. Als “Auto-Phänomenologe” übt sich Michailov in der Rolle des Fotoliebhabers, einer sowohl idealtypisch zu denkenden, als auch sozial konstruierten Identität der sowjetischen Gesellschaft. Indem er die Epoche im Verhältnis von Zeit und Selbst darstellt, erfordert er auch einen nuancierteren Blick auf die oft durch den Gegensatz zwischen offizieller und nonkoformistischer Kunst definierte spätsowjetische Gesellschaft.
Abstract
In this article, we propose to position a work by Ukranian photographer Boris Mikhailov, Unfinished Dissertation (1984) in the culture of the photo-amateur in order to gain a more nuanced understanding of the uses of photography in the last Soviet decade. This analysis allows us to study the historic fabric of the last decade of the Soviet period known as zastoi, and to disrupt the received dichotomy between official and nonconformist art.
"
Published in Il Presente. Fotografia: Festival Internazionale di Roma, curated by Marco Delogu (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2015),
Papers by Olga Smith
In diesem Aufsatz betrachten wir die Unvollendete Dissertation (1984), ein Werk des ukrainischen Fotografen Boris Michailov, als Dokument der spätsowjetischen Zeit. Dabei verfolgen wir die vom Künstler selbst in diesem Werk angedeuteten Spur zu Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie weiter, indem wir Michailovs fotografische Arbeit als phänomenologische Untersuchung der eigenen Person in der rückwirkend als Stagnation (auf Russisch: Sastoi) bezeichneten Zeit fassen. Als “Auto-Phänomenologe” übt sich Michailov in der Rolle des Fotoliebhabers, einer sowohl idealtypisch zu denkenden, als auch sozial konstruierten Identität der sowjetischen Gesellschaft. Indem er die Epoche im Verhältnis von Zeit und Selbst darstellt, erfordert er auch einen nuancierteren Blick auf die oft durch den Gegensatz zwischen offizieller und nonkoformistischer Kunst definierte spätsowjetische Gesellschaft.
Abstract
In this article, we propose to position a work by Ukranian photographer Boris Mikhailov, Unfinished Dissertation (1984) in the culture of the photo-amateur in order to gain a more nuanced understanding of the uses of photography in the last Soviet decade. This analysis allows us to study the historic fabric of the last decade of the Soviet period known as zastoi, and to disrupt the received dichotomy between official and nonconformist art.
"
Published in Il Presente. Fotografia: Festival Internazionale di Roma, curated by Marco Delogu (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2015),
Pqper presented at the International Workshop at the German Historical Institute Moscow in cooperation with the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) “Threatened Orders” of Tübingen University