Russia. Contemporary Photographic Art from Moscow.

Prestel-Verlag, 1995. Edited by Alexander Tolnay. Stiff illustrated wraps with custom made 4-mil polyester jacket. Includes plates by 18 different photographers or groups of photographers, as well as essays by Tolnay, Yekaterina Dyogot, Kathrin Becker, Barbara Barsch, Angel Lammert. Large format, 128 pages. Photographers include Boris Mikhailov, Igor Moukhin, Vadim Fishkin, Alexei Goga, Sergei Leontiev, Tatyana Liberman, Ilya Piganov, Maria Serebriakova, Alexei Shulgin, Anatoli Shuravlev, AES Group, Yuri Babich, Gor Chahal, Olga Chernysheva, Vladislav Efimov, Fenso Group, IV Vysota Group. Fine condition, like new.  Summary:

Contemporary Photographic Art from Moscow (Zeitgenössische Fotokunst aus Moskau) is a dual-language (English/German) exhibition catalogue published by Prestel. Edited by Alexander Tolnay, the volume documents a major exhibition tracking the evolution of conceptual and non-conformist photography in Moscow.

Historical Context and Core Narrative

The book explores an aesthetic revolution that began underground in the 1970s. Rejecting the state-sanctioned, objective realism of Soviet photojournalism, a group of unofficial artists operating in amateur photo clubs pioneered a highly subjective approach to the medium.

The narrative traces this movement from its covert origins through the Perestroika era and into the mid-1990s, showcasing how Moscow's photographers embraced staging, multimedia, and digital techniques to transition photography into a recognized fine art form.

Key Themes and Techniques

• Anti-Realism: A deliberate shift away from documenting reality in favor of the surreal, the grotesque, and the abstract.

• Manipulated Imagery: Heavy utilization of conceptual montage, optical refraction, deliberate distortion, and performance-based self-portraiture.

• The Third Dimension: An exploration of how technology and computer applications allowed photography to interface with sculpture, installation, and multimedia.

Featured Contributors

The volume includes analytical essays by prominent art historians and curators, alongside portfolios from 18 of the movement's most significant contemporary artists and collectives:

• Essays by: Alexander Tolnay, Yekaterina Dyogot, Kathrin Becker, Barbara Barsch, and Angela Lammert.

• Featured Artists: Boris Mikhailov, Igor Moukhin, Olga Chernysheva, Vladislav Efimov, Vadim Fishkin, Sergei Leontiev, Tatyana Liberman, Ilya Piganov, Maria Serebriakova, Alexei Shulgin, Anatoli Shuravlev, Alexei Goga, Yuri Babich, and Gor Chahal.

• Featured Collectives: The AES Group, Fenso Group, and IV Vysota Group.