Sergei Solonsky, Phallic Heraldry, 1996
Undermining official Soviet narratives and visual language has always been inherent in Kharkiv School photographers’ activity — be it nude imagery, embellishment of the surrounding reality, or interpretation of history.
Boris Mikhailov, Overlays, 1968—1981
“In the history of our photography, we have no famine of the 1930s in Ukraine, when several million died and corpses lay outdoors. We don’t have photos of the war, because journalists were forbidden to show pictures of grief that threatened the Soviet morale; we have no ‘unpolished’ photos of enterprises, no images of street events, except for demonstrations. The whole history is ‘covered with dust’.”
Roman Pyatkovka, The Phantoms of the '30s, 1990
It is the Great Famine in Ukraine that Roman Pyatkovka’s Phantoms of the '30s series is dedicated to — a dramatic pantheon of ghosts, not so much a representation of a particular man’s fate but archetypes, apparitions drawn from the depths of the collective memory.
Roman Pyatkovka, The Phantoms of the '30s, 1990
“This series is the portraits of those victimized by Stalin’s repressions and the Holodomor of 1932—1933. Some faces are the paraphrases of typical portraits in the heroic style of the totalitarian period with its ‘honor rolls’; some resemble yellowed photos from the family archives... However, this project is not a series of documentaries. It is an artistic imitation of real facts that lead the viewer to the realm of myth.”
Group of Immediate Reaction (Sergey Bratkov, Boris Mikhailov, and Sergei Solonsky). If I Were a German, 1994 (with Vita Mikhailov), silver print, private collection, Moscow. Courtesy of PinchukArtCentre © 2016. Photographer: Serhiy Illin
The Group of Immediate Reaction traditionally refers to the burlesque and dressing up to undermine through carnival the idea of looking at history through the winner’s eyes. The Soviet Union no longer existed, and there was room to create a new, more sincere and inclusive narrative. But the artists, accustomed to being in opposition to the Soviet official canon, created another reproduction of their old protest performances.
Roman Pyatkovka, Soviet Photo, 2012
The dialog with the non-existent regime goes on in Kharkiv School works. For instance, in Roman Pyatkovka’s 2012 series of collages with Soviet Photo magazine pages.
Yaroslav Solop (Kyiv), Plastic Mythology, 2011—2014
Another start for collective trauma reflections was given by the 2014 Russian aggression against Ukraine — for KSP followers from other cities as well.
Igor Manko, Golden Ratio of Ukrainian Landscape, 2014
Some artists were prompted to turn to new symbols not connected with the Soviet past.
Igor Manko, Golden Ratio of Ukrainian Landscape, 2014
Roberto Muffoletto, VASA Project curator: “In imposing Ukraine's colors, blue and yellow, on flags, fields of sand, pools of water, and other environmental surfaces, Manko is claiming this to be Ukraine. (The viewer of the work needs to place it in the context of the war conflict with Russia.)”
Gera Artemova (Kyiv),, Fall of Carthage, 2017
Other artists attempted yet another deconstruction of Soviet symbols reinstalled by the Russian government in its official narrative.
Roman Pyatkovka, The Third Rome, 2015
Among the means to reflect on these symbols, again there appear costumes, burlesque, and carnival.
Sergey Bratkov, Empire of Nightdreams, 2017
At the same time, Sergei Bratkov in Moscow creates a series of photo objects for the exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Russian October Revolution, "a metaphorical story about unending post-Soviet reality."