OVERLAYS: Oleg Malevany, Fresco, 1973—1974

In creating a new visual language Kharkiv photographers came up with a number of original techniques.

OVERLAYS: Evgeniy Pavlov, 1974

'Overlays' were probably their first invention on the way to new and more complex means of visual expression.

OVERLAYS: Oleg Malevany, Foreboding (Vitas Luckus), 1971

Two overlaid color slide film frames were either projected on a screen as a slide show or printed on color photo paper.

OVERLAYS: Boris Mikhailov, 1970s

Boris Mikhailov is believed to be the inventor of this technique.

OVERLAYS: Boris Mikhailov, 1970s

Mikhailov’s work in overlays, as in all his œuvre, has an acute social focus.

OVERLAYS: Evgeniy Pavlov, 1976

The technique produced a result similar to multiexposure but allowed clearer detailing and more combinatory possibilities.

OVERLAYS: Roman Pyatkovka, Soviet Photo, 2012

Roman Pyatkovka’s brutal imagery of voluptuous nudes had no chance to appear in the Soviet Photo magazine …

OVERLAYS: Roman Pyatkovka, Soviet Photo, 2012

… so in 2012 the artist digitally imposed his Soviet period photos over the magazine page scans.

OVERLAYS: Oleg Malevany, 20 Views of Factory Chimney, 2013—2014

Oleg Malevany’s works of 2000—2015 use digital techniques to emulate the analog overlays of the 1970s and 1980s.

COLLAGES / MONTAGES: Alexandr Suprun, Shepherd, 1975

Alexandr Suprun favored photomontage as the main method in his work.

COLLAGES / MONTAGES: Alexandr Suprun, Springtime in the Forest, 1975

In Suprun’s Springtime in the Forest, the same flower fragment was used 51 times.

COLLAGES / MONTAGES: Oleg Malevany, Gravitation, 1976

COLLAGES / MONTAGES: Evgeniy Pavlov, Alone by myself, 1987

Evgeniy Pavlov’s 1980s photocollages do not try to simulate real-life pictures but create what can be called a 'could-be' reality.

COLLAGES / MONTAGES: Evgeniy Pavlov, Last Supper, 1991

In his 1990s works, Pavlov rejected all attempts at imitating a 'strait' photograph: black-and-white and color fragments combined with manual coloring and scratching resulted in masterful complex images.

COLLAGES / MONTAGES: Roman Pyatkovka, The Games of Libido, 1995

In The Games of Libido, Roman Pyatkovka invented a 'negative montage' technique: fragments of original black-and-white negatives were glued onto a glass plaque and printed immediately while the glue corroded the film.

COLLAGES / MONTAGES: Sergei Solonsky, Bestiary, 1990s

Sergei Solonsky in his Bestiary series used overlays, printing deformation, and toning along with the usual manual collage techniques.

COLLAGES / MONTAGES: Sergei Solonsky, Phallic Heraldry, 1996

Another of Solonsky’s projects, Phallic Heraldry, is a series of toned collages consisting of repetitive penis image fragments arranged into what looks like national emblems and symbols.

COLLAGES / MONTAGES: Igor Karpenko, The Ideal World, 2006

In The Ideal World digital montages, Igor Karpenko used multi-exposure to inhabit his images with people, animals, and objects.

HAND—COLORING: Boris Mikhailov, Luriki, 1971—1985

A specifically Soviet product called a 'lurik' was a commercial hand-colored portrait, mounted or framed, enlarged, and retouched.

HAND—COLORING: Boris Mikhailov, Luriki, 1971—1985

Family or passport photos by origin, these pathetic examples of true folk art sometimes included instructions: to remove a hat or add more hair, to make a montage coupling two people in one photo of a would-be family, etc.

HAND—COLORING: Victor Kochetov, Hammering Down a Spike-nail, 1991

Victor Kochetov’s coloring is brutal and uncompromising. It turns his originally realistic gloomy black-and-white scenes of Soviet life into works of kitsch.

HAND—COLORING: Victor Kochetov, 1976

Kochetovs takes to its extreme the socialist realism doctrine of showing the brighter side of reality in an effort to change it by means of art.

HAND—COLORING: Anatoly Makienko, 1995

HAND—COLORING: Evgeniy Pavlov, Total Photograph, 1990—1994

In Total Photograph, Evgeniy Pavlov uses all available techniques to illustrate his concept that any photographic image (including found material) can be turned into a work of art.

HAND—COLORING: Evgeniy Pavlov, Vladimir Shaposhnikov, Second Heaven, 1998—2003

Pavlov’s zeal for a new form of expression led him to three series of works where photo prints were painted over, then reproduced photographically, and painted over again.

HAND—COLORING: Roman Pyatkovka, Communal Apartment, 2008

Roman Pyatkovka’s series of staged hand-colored images satirizes a 1920s Soviet invention to force social equality by having several families share the kitchen and the bathroom in a large apartment.

HAND—COLORING: Vlad Krasnoshchok, Negatives Preserved, 2011

Vlad Krasnoshchok makes found at the flea market vintage portraits look like a Dadaist experiment or a child’s drawing exercise, rendering the revered KSP technique null and void in an overt artistic gesture.

HAND—COLORING: Roman Minin, Dreams about War, 2011

Roman Minin draws with color markers over 60 mm black-and-white negatives which he then prints on color photo paper.

CONCEPTUAL: Boris Mikhailov, 1980s

Boris Mikhailov claimed that a high-quality glossy full-tonal image was unable to adequately depict Soviet life.

CONCEPTUAL: Boris Mikhailov, 1980s

He suggested the concept of "bad photography for bad reality": small sloppily printed black-and-white photos, often blurred, low contrast, showing film defects or perforation — the first example of conceptualism in photography in the USSR.

CONCEPTUAL: Boris Mikhailov, At Dusk, 1993

In the early 1990s, Boris Mikhailov made a significant contribution to his 'bad photography' concept. He used stains and other defects of color toning as a visual representation of deteriorating living standards.

CONCEPTUAL: Evgeniy Pavlov, Eclipse, 1999

Conceptualism in Kharkiv photography played with print quality, found material, text comments, post-production techniques, etc.

CONCEPTUAL: Evgeniy Pavlov, Eclipse, 1999

Evgeniy Pavlov’s Eclipse is a series of seven optical montages based on an amateur group photo.

CONCEPTUAL: Evgeniy Pavlov, The Archive Series, 1987—1988

Evgeniy Pavlov uses found material, torn prints and film; he applies collaging techniques, hand-coloring, and drawing to question the authenticity of a photographic image.

CONCEPTUAL: Shilo group, The Finished Dissertation, 2013

In 2013, the Shilo group forcefully placed themselves into the Kharkiv School of Photography …

CONCEPTUAL: Shilo group, The Finished Dissertation, 2013

… in a token artistic gesture of pasting their prints over Boris Mikhailov's photos in his Unfinished Dissertation photobook, leaving Mikhailov’s text comments intact.