Artwork information
- Project
- The Maiden in the Tower
- Name
- Untitled
- Year
- 2018
- Medium
- archival pigment print
- Dimensions
- 30x20 cm
- Provenance
- Photographers' private archive
- Catalog number
- POSU-09
- Inscription
-
–
- Key words
- braid, Elena Subach, hand, tower, Viacheslav Poliakov
About the artist
Untitled
Viacheslav Poliakov (b. 1986) and Elena Subach (b. 1980) began their photographic journeys independently. However, after Viacheslav had moved from Kherson to Lviv in 2012, they met and began working together. They participated in the activities of the Lviv photo club “5×5”. One of the practices that shaped the artists’ creative approaches was travelling to small towns and villages. They visited small towns and villages in the Lviv region and neighbouring areas during these trips. Their interest in the provinces, with their unique and vanishing landscape, is partly connected to these travels and partly to the places where the artists themselves were born – Kherson and Chervonohrad. This landscape is shaped by religiosity and superstition intertwined with the post-Soviet legacy and mass notions of “aesthetics”, which reveal themselves in everyday details – from the pattern on an elderly woman’s headscarf to attempts to decorate a yard.
Among their joint projects are The Maiden in the Tower (2018) and The City of Gardens (2019).
Solo exhibitions:
2018 — “Субач / Поляков / Subach / Poliakov”, The Naked Room gallery, Kyiv, Ukraine (curators — Lizaveta German and Maria Lanko)
2019 — “City of Gardens”, EEP Berlin gallery, Berlin, Germany (curator — Maya Hristova)
2019 — “Heroic Trip”, Szara gallery, Catowice, Poland (curator — Andrzej Tobis)
2020 — “City of Gardens”, “Galerie 21 – im Künstlerhaus Vorwerkstift”, Hamburg, Germany (curator — Jewgeni Roppel)
2020 — “‘Жилпас’ Жанни Возбранної / ‘Zhilpas’ of Zhanna Vozbranna”, Museum of Contemporary Art of Kherson, Kherson, Ukraine
2022 —“Subach / Poliakov” as a part of “Druh Druha / Друг друга” programme, Galeria Szara, Warsaw, Poland
Premiyak, Liza. “Elena Subach and Viacheslav Poliakov: post-industrial Silesia, but not as you know it”. Calvert Journal, November 23, 2018. https://gupmagazine.com/interview/interview-with-elena-subach-and-viacheslav-poliakov/?fbclid=IwAR1d1dSpHO20wIVbQbK9l6x7XWVdixjUaHPEI1dk98qgYeVTknZbJ47kGJM.
Blanco, Alex. “Interview with Elena Subach and Viacheslav Poliakov”. GUP Magazine, n.d. https://gupmagazine.com/interview/interview-with-elena-subach-and-viacheslav-poliakov/?fbclid=IwAR1d1dSpHO20wIVbQbK9l6x7XWVdixjUaHPEI1dk98qgYeVTknZbJ47kGJM.
The Information Front. Ukraine – The Path to Freedom. no. 2 (2022). Published on the occasion of “Ukraine. The Pass to Freedom” exhibition at Noorderlicht Photography Foundation, Groningen, Netherlands
Wright, Sophie. “City of Gardens”. Lens Culture, not dated. https://www.lensculture.com/articles/viacheslav-poliakov-city-of-gardens?fbclid=IwAR1zUm99xqIzT_xAjoLZj3Blj0RC0Z1vU25RahK9x7zIvBgeV07Rwbh-nM8.
Голдштейн, Льоля [Goldstein, Liolia]. “Зона наближення: Чорнобиль”. Bird in Flight, April 21, 2021. https://birdinflight.com/nathnennya-2/project-uk/zona-priblizheniya-chernobyl.html.
“Чай, кава, дзвіниця. Олена Субач і Вʼячеслав Поляков — у ʼРівні цензуриʼ”. Zaborona, not dated. https://zaborona.com/chaj-kava-dzvinyczya-olena-subach-i-vyacheslav-polyakov-u-rivni-czenzury/.





