fotofever paris 2015

13 > 15 november 2015

Lumiere Brothers Gallery made its debut appearance at FotoFever photography art fair, held at Carrousel du Louvre in Paris from November 13th to 15th of 2015. Avant-garde from the 1930s and photojournalism from the 1960s-1970s, the gallery’s main focus, were presented in Paris exclusively along with acknowledged American masters and contemporary photographers.  

The gallery exhibited the classics of Soviet constructivism: Boris Ignatovich, Jakov Khalip, and Mikhail Prekhner, whose innovative techniques can be traced in rhythmically accented photographs of parades and athletes taken from an unconventional point of view by Lev Borodulin, an outstanding sport photographer from the 1960s. Borodulin’s vintage prints were on view along with a selection from his own collection featuring the foremost photojournalists from the 1930s such as Pyotr Otsup, Arkady Shaikhet and Max Alpert.

Used mainly as a means of propaganda during the prewar period, over time, the works of Russian constructivists and social realists became notable for their artistic value and considered as the chef d’oeuvres of world art and the highlights of museums’ collections. The gallery exhibited a selection of photojournalists from the 1960s and 1970s, a period known as the Thaw: Yuri Lunkov, Andrey Knyazev, Vladimir Lagrange, Yuri Krivonosov, and Sergey Petrukhin whose works, permeated by postwar optimism and sense of freedom in the wake of the reforms of the 1950s, became the sensation of the FotoFestBiennal in Houston in 2012.

In addition to reportages, the gallery presented a variety of Moscow vistas spanning from a poetic cityscape from the 1930s by Markov-Grinberg to an iconic view of postwar Moscow by Naum Granovsky. Romualdas Pozerskis, an important but not yet familiar to European market representative of the Lithuanian school, which the gallery has been associated with for over 15 years, were also exhibited.

Contemporary Russian artists Vadim Gushchin, renowned for minimalistic still life photography rooted in Russian avant-garde painting, and Anton Lyalin, who has been expressing his fascination of pristine African nature in spectacular panoramas notable for their meticulous detail, were on view along with Soviet classics.

The gallery showed some iconic works by the mid-century West Coast modernist Wynn Bullock, including famous “Child in forest” featured in Edward Steichen’s landmark exhibition “The Family of Man”.

A particular highlight was nude studies and street-photography by the important figure of New York photography scene, Photo League participant, Harold Feinstein. Honored with a major retrospective at the ICP in 1990, the photographer was introduced to Europe for the first time.

A selection of celebrity photography included works by the prominent photojournalist from the 60s Steve Schapiro, eloquent pictures by the most celebrated American portrait photographer of Hollywood stars Greg Gorman, portraits by Sasha Gusov, whose flair for theatricality traces back to his first series on ballet, which brought the photographer into limelight.