Exhibition "Stone Flower" at the State Center for Contemporary Art

Pupils of the Moscow school of photography presented the graduation project "Stone Flower" in the small hall of the NCCA. The interest of future masters of art photography was focused on the exclusive architectural object of the capital - VDNH. Numerous reconstructions, perestroika, changes and an equally unstable name made this place a living textbook on shaping.

Participants of the exhibition Afonina Alla, Gavrilova Sofya, Kamenskaya Galina, Corsi Aleksey, Shokhov Nikita, Tatarinova Sofya tried to capture through the lens a retrospective connection of the past with the present. Many shots were shot so talentedly that it creates a sense of presence back in 1958. The photographs convey the vision that the architects of VDNH tried to put into their creation - an ideal future, the embodiment of Soviet ideology, the symbols of peasant culture. The majesty of the lobby, the simple decor, panels, majolica and marble… As if they are arguing with modernity, claiming: “The past has not gone anywhere. It is in each of us. ” He is opposed only by a personal assessment of each participant, which has proved itself in several dozen personal photographs.

The six-sided vision of VDNH (in terms of the number of participants in the project) is interesting, first of all, by the conflict, the struggle between the real and the ideal. And also by the fact that every visitor of the project “Stone Flower” will have the opportunity to take a completely different look at such a familiar place.

Eve Istr