THE REVOLUTION OF PEOPLE
The revolution of ideas is the revolution of people
June 28 – September 3, 2017

The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography is pleased to announce the exhibition The Revolution of People devoted to the history of Russia’s scientific and industrial achievements since the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The joint exhibition of the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, Sistema Charitable Foundation and RTI Concern Systems is based on the classical photography works of the Soviet period, video footage and documentary material from the archives of Russia’s major defense factories that are to be revealed for the first time within the show. Marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the exhibition demonstrates the revolutionary character of the ideas and technological solutions in high-tech industry, microelectronics, aviation, and heavy industry that were realized by scientists, engineers and factory workers.

Man has always been one of the most intriguing and inexhaustible subjects in art. The image of a working man was one of the key images in Soviet photography that embodied both spiritual values of an individual and ideological and socio-historical values of every epoch. Photographer’s treatment of the laborer evolved following the evolution of man himself. Thus, the exhibition will cover the key milestones in the development of Soviet photography from the 1920s until the 1980s as seen through the image of a worker. The logic of the exposition will also rely on the subject of documentary materials – photographs from Russia’s major defense factories. The history of the revolutionary ideas and developments in various fields of science shows through documentary evidence and classical Soviet photographs of labourers and scientists.

One of the key slogans of the Russian Revolution 1917 “Land to the Peasants! Factories to the Workers!” was reflected in a revolutionary aspiration of the images of workers of the 1920-1930s taken by the classics of Soviet photography Arkady Shaikhet, Mikhail Prekhner, Mark Markov-Grinberg, etc. The photographers were seeking to show the drastic transformation of the country by means of their own innovative artistic techniques: abrupt shots of the new industrial world and its heroes with unusual foreshortening. Their photographs revealed strength, will and courage of the people of the new era and literally filled the viewer with faith in a glorious future.

War photographs taken by Yakov Khalip, Alexander Ustinov, Naum Granovsky as well as many other war photo correspondents who shot at the front lines and military plants, from the trenches and airplane cabins, revealed striking examples of military portraits that called for victory. The characters of Valentin Khukhlaev’s works of the late 1940s and early 1950s were people who worked at the construction site of new cities and factories. Even though deliberate and staged, portraits of that period still inspired optimism. The Khrushchev Thaw brings the spirit of freedom and new prospects together with tremendous breakthroughs in science. In the mid-1950s – 1960s photographers Evgeny Khaldey, Vladimir Lagrange, Anatoly Khrupov, Yakov Ryumkin focus on “physicists and lyricists” abandoning staging and excessive pathos in favor of a personal emotional experience and a closer-to- real-life report. The exposition is concluded by TRIVA group of photographers (V. Sokolaev, V. Vorobiev), presenting independent social trends of direct documentary photography and new working heroes of the 1970-1980s.