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When it comes to the Russian photographers who have gained the world's recognition in the last couple of years first of all should be mentioned the authors we present at the exhibition at Mart Center of Photography: Alexander Gronsky, Danila Tkachenko and Nikita Shokhov. And it is not just because of the fact that they are the 2012 and 2014 World Press Photo prize-winners and moreover received prizes from FOAM, Aperture, Lens Culture, Burn Magazine etc. They all share something in common that makes them truly modern photographers, that is the complex relationships of photography and reality, when it is hard to draw a line between facts and fiction, document and art, life and theatre.

ALEXANDER GRONSKY. RECONSTRUCTION

photographs made available by Grinberg Gallery

Alexander Gronsky (b. Tallinn, Estonia, 1980) is a landscape photographer, currently based in Riga, Latvia. He is known for his photographs of the Russian landscape, which have received solo exhibitions, awards and were published in his book Pastoral (2013). Between 1999 and 2008 he worked as a press photographer for Russian and international media, covering Russia and the former USSR. Since 2008 Gronsky has been oriented more on personal projects focusing on how geography influences the emotions and behaviour of its inhabitants, particularly those residing in the Russian landscape. Gronsky says he spent two years familiarising himself with all the suburbs of Moscow and a further two years photographing those he considered interesting.

My process is very intuitive: I'm interested in the photographic image in general, and it's important for me to question its forms. For Reconstruction I was interested in historical panoramas. There are museums where you can see a panorama of a particular battle presented as a 360-degree landscape with objects in the foreground.

At some point I wanted to extend both the space captured and the photograph on the wall, and think about how each piece can interact with another. Having two or three panels enables me to explore space in more complex ways, and adds layers of observation and contemplation for the viewer.

An important part of my exploration is testing the limits of the photographic image. For Reconstruction I tried to manipulate both space and the time. For some of the triptychs I used parts of other landscapes or other re-enactments. Sometimes there was a big gap between images, or I would take one image an hour after another. There's a kind of conflict or narrative that occurs between images separated by a period of time.

It's more of a pseudo-narrative, a narrative that originates from the pictures themselves. You look at the pictures and presume they are connected in some way, and that there's a story behind this connection. I never give any particular detail of what is going on, so that the viewer can try to interpret it in any way. For me it isn't necessary that the thing in the photograph should somehow explain reality, it should be misleading as well.

DANILA TKACHENKO. ESCAPE

Danila Tkachenko (b. 1989 in Moscow, Russia) studied documentary photography at The Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia. His work has been exhibited internationally. Tkachenko has won the Lensculture Exposure award and the European Publishers Award for Photography in 2015, as well as the World Press Photo Award 2013. He was shortlisted for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award and Magnum's 30 under 30 last year.

I was traveling in search for people who have decided to escape from social life and live all alone in the wild nature, far away from any villages, towns or other people. The main characters of my project violate social standards for different reasons. By a complete withdrawal from society they go to live alone in the wild nature, gradually dissolving in it and losing their social identity. While exploring their experience, it is important for me to understand if one is able to break free from social dependence and get away from the public to the subjective - and thus, to make a step towards oneself.

I am concerned about the issue of internal freedom in the modern society: is it at all reachable, when you're surrounded by social framework all the time? School, work, family - once in this cycle, you are a prisoner of your own position, and have to do what you're supposed to. You should be pragmatic and strong, or become an outcast or a lunatic. How to remain yourself in the midst of this? I grew up in the heart of the big city, but I've always been drawn to wildlife - for me it's a place where I can hide and feel the real me, my true self, out of the social context.

"In the mountains I feel more secure. This is the quietest place on earth. It's so beautiful here! There's no one here... Time flows calmly and smoothly, only nature changes, and watching it is a great pleasure. A day passes; it is very much like yesterday and about the same as tomorrow. Solitude is an opportunity to start enjoying simple things anew. The only way to gain freedom is through solitude. You still have laws, the laws of nature, and you have discipline. Compulsion, compromise and confinement start when someone else appears"

"Don't you understand? I don't suit this society, and it doesn't suit me. I haven't done anything in this world, and I can't do anything here... I couldn't even give anything to my family! I don't have friends, and there's no way I can have them. But don't you take what's mine! I've already been stripped of everything. There, behind the wire, all that is mine. You see? Right here! In the woods! My happiness, my freedom, my dignity — it's all here! And I don't want anything else. Man cannot defeat nature. The only thing he can do is submit to it completely. I only understood this when I left. Maybe that's why I feel so good here."

DANILA TKACHENKO. RESTRICTED AREAS

The project "Restricted Areas" is about utopian strive of humans for technological progress. Humans are always trying to own ever more than they have - this is the source of technical progress, which was the means to create various commodities, standards, as well as the tools of violence in order to keep the power over others.

Better, higher, stronger - these ideals often express the main ideology of the governments, for these goals they are ready to sacrifice almost everything. While the individual is supposed to become a tool for reaching the set goals, and receive in exchange the higher level of comfort.

I travel in search of places which used to have great importance for the technical progress - and which are now deserted. Those places lost their significance together with the utopian ideology which is now obsolete. Secret cities that cannot be found on maps, forgotten scientific triumphs, abandoned buildings of almost inhuman complexity. The perfect technocratic future that never came. Any progress comes to its end earlier or later, it can happen due to different reasons - nuclear war, economic crisis or natural disaster. For me it's interesting to witness what is left after.

NIKITA SHOKHOV. UTRICH

Nikita Shokhov (b. 1988 in Kamensk-Uralsky, USSR) is a former student of Igor Moukhin and the winner of 2014 World Press Photo contest. He is the son of Konstantin Shokhov a painter, art critic. Shokhov's interest in visual arts developed under the influence of his father. Shokhov started his education at a law college, but his interests shifted towards cinematography. He applied to the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (also known as VGIK) in Moscow and began to study photography. He learned from a Ekaterinburg-based photographer Sergey Rogozhkin and took classes at a photography school there. He also studied part-time at Sverdlovsk Film Studio.

Shokho'sv manner of work combining staged photography and photojournalism developed during that apprenticeship. Shokhov's methods vary from documentary to staged photography. He claims to highlight universal topics, performing visual research on both everyday affairs, religion, and carnivalesque topics. Shokhov's works have been published by both Russian and international popular and professional magazines including The Guardian, ArtKhronika, Harper's Bazaar Art, Calvert Journal, L'Insense Photo, Inframince, and Le Monde

The 2012-2013 Black Sea Vacation is an insight into low culture of Sochi and Anapa resorts. Shokhov's collective portrait of vacationers calls up to Martin Parr's method as well as to the works of his master Sergei Rogozkin. His 2014 Utrich series that won a World Press Photo award develops it further through a fullystaged series based on iconographic scenes. Shokhov claims that the combination of planned scenario and models' improvisation was inspired by the works of Annie Leibovitz, David Lachapelle, and Ryan McGinley.

Utrish national park, on the northern shores of the Black Sea, has been a favorite spot for nudists since the 1960s. Nudism was frowned upon by Soviet society, but there was a resurgence in naturist clubs and beaches after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Центр фотографии "Март". Екатеринбург. 8 Марта, 1

Время работы: 11.00 - 22.00 без выходных. Цена билета