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Roman Pyatkovka, 1980s. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n
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Starting with the 2000s, the creative work of Oleg Maliovany<\/a>, one of the representatives of what is deemed the first wave of Kharkiv School of Photography, got two different interpretations in the modern art history discourse in Ukraine.<\/span><\/p>\n On the one hand, Oleg Maliovany is represented as a photo artist specialising in nude photography since the photos of naked bodies make a big part of his works. Even in earlier solarizations from 1965\u20131966, modestly in most cases, but sometimes pretty explicitly,\u00a0 naked and almost always female bodies start to appear in nearly every series by the photographer: in early montages, equidensites, colour \u00absuperpositions\u00bb, collages as well as in <\/span>Burnt Time<\/span><\/i> (1979) and <\/span>Dasha<\/span><\/i> (1989-1990) series. <\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”183105,183107,183109,183111,183113″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ custom_margin=”30px||||false|false”][\/et_pb_gallery][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_font=”|700|||||||” text_font_size=”14px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”20px||30px||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false”]<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany, “Untitled”, black and white equidensite, gelatin-silver print, 1971, 40 \u0445 30 cm, author’s collection.<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany, “Untitled”, from Burnt Time <\/em>series, mixed media technique, colour print on Cibachrome, 1970-1979, 40,5 x 30,5 cm, the MOKSOP’s collection<\/span>.<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany, “Expectation”, pseudo bas-relief, 1970, 40,3 x 29,3 cm, the MOKSOP’s collection<\/span>.<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany, \u201cTania\u201d, from Tania <\/em>series<\/em>, gelatin silver print, 1971, 40,5 x 30,5 cm, Oleg Maliovany, \u201cUntitled\u201d, from Dasha <\/em>series<\/em>, colour print on Cibachrome, 1989-1990, [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_orientation=”justified” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n In 2017 in the <\/span>Ukrainian Erotic Photography<\/span><\/i> book, he was represented by seven photographs along with three other members of Kharkiv School of Photography \u2014\u00a0 Evgeniy Pavlov<\/a>, Sergiy Bratkov<\/a> and Roman Pyatkovka<\/a>. Taking into account the formal ban on depicting a naked body in the USSR, the constancy with which Oleg Maliovany addressed this topic was unavoidably interpreted as a subversive, protest and political gesture. This assumption got its peculiar proof in the fact that Oleg Maliovany\u2019s works weren\u2019t let out of the country starting from 1976, and it was only through bypassing the post that he managed to send his works to international salon exhibitions. This is how the realisation of the likelihood of accidental repressions by the dictatorial regime smoothens down the confusion of a modern viewer, who finds it hard to find anything criminal in these photos, where a female body is always aestheticised and exploited in the classical role of a metaphor of beauty, unprotectedness and fragility.<\/span><\/p>\n Another image that unexpectedly for the author himself became dominant in the modern art field is connected with staged photo series that play a marginal role in the general mass of works by Oleg Maliovany.<\/span><\/p>\n These series are made up of a sequence in most cases shot with a static camera, in which a certain action obviously devoid of practical meaning is unfolding. In the series of poses, the paramount importance belongs to the theatrical plasticity of the models\u2019 bodies, while the author\u2019s idea (the relationship of a man and a woman in the <\/span>Two in an Interior<\/span><\/i> series, 1992, and the grotesque overturning of the clich\u00e9s of masculine physicality in<\/span> Blue Series<\/span><\/i>, 1992) is conveyed only in a superficial way. It was those staged theatrical sequences that were selected by French curators to represent Oleg Maliovany\u2019s works in the framework of the <\/span>Crossing Lines<\/span><\/i> exhibition in 2019 1<\/a><\/sup>From June 28 to December 27, 2019, the Crossing Lines exhibition that took place in PinchukArtCentre demonstrated a curator\u2019s point of view on the phenomenon of Kharkiv School of Photography. What made that point of view even more special was the fact that it had a geographical and cultural distance from the object of contemplation: both of the exhibition curators were French professionals Alicia Knock and Martin Kiefer. The exhibition was held simultaneously with a large Boris Mikhailov retrospective.<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”183215,183262″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ custom_margin=”30px||||false|false”][\/et_pb_gallery][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_font=”|700|||||||” text_font_size=”14px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”20px||30px||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany, \u201cIgor showing Oleg how to open bottles properly\u201d,<\/em> gelatin silver print, 1991 or 1992, 36 x 26 cm, the MOKSOP’s collection.<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany, \u201cChursin who lives inside the stool\u201d,<\/em> gelatin silver print, 1991 or 1992, 36 x 26 cm, [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_orientation=”justified” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n However, both views on Oleg Maliovany\u2019s creative work, despite being complementary to each other, keep us out of understanding what the role of this author in the history of photography is: the indispensable and dialectic link between his works and the late-Soviet aesthetics is impossible to describe in the terms of the dissidence\/conformism dichotomic opposition.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.4.7″ header_3_font=”Open Sans|700|||||||” header_3_font_size=”24px” custom_margin=”45px||10px||false|false”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_orientation=”justified” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany (born in 1945, in Rubtsovsk, Altai Krai, RSFSR) just like most of the members of the legendary \u201cVremia\u201d group<\/span> 2<\/a><\/sup>See more details on the Vremia group and the role of active photography community in the formation of the non-mainstream Kharkiv photography in the early 1970s in \u201cJuri Rupin\u2019s Photographic Paths\u201d article by Nadia Kovalchuk, https:\/\/www.moksop.org\/fotohrafichni\u2013tropy\u2013yuriia\u2013rupina\/. <\/span><\/span><\/a> got an engineering education. After graduating from Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute, Maliovany started working in his degree field, as a metal scientist at Stankinprom. However, after two years, he was already leading that plant\u2019s colour photography lab. Officially he continued to be listed as an engineer, as there was no such position as a photographer at Soviet plants. Such a radical change in the job field wasn\u2019t accidental, because ever since student times Oleg Maliovany worked as a correspondent of the <\/span>Leninskie Kadry<\/span><\/i> university paper. And it was even earlier that he mastered colour print technology and got so good at it that very soon he received recognition and got popular in Kharkiv. Since that time his life has been inseparably connected with photography in its various forms. He worked on illustrations for the Prapor publishing house, helped artists create portfolios for joining the Artist Association and worked as a photographer for the Institute of Soil Sciences for decades.<\/span><\/p>\n Still, he got the greatest recognition that reached the level of real popularity in the 1970s\u00a0 as a <\/span>photoartist<\/span><\/i>. And he cultivated this bright image becoming an example for many photographers of the city dreaming of expressing themselves in the art of photography<\/span> 3<\/a><\/sup>\u201c [\u2026] in the beginning of the 1980s, a cafe with a very weird name \u2018Buchenwald\u2019 appeared[\u2026]. The atmosphere there was creative, and some exhibitions were held. Once there was an exhibition of Oleg Maliovany\u2019s works [\u2026]. He used to come to that cafe with that shaggy hair of his, and there was a vivid image of an artist about him, not just of a photographer that simply took everyone\u2019s photos with his camera.\u201d See \u201cMisha Pedan: All the Fears at the End of the Soviet Era Were Connected with the Fact that It Was Unclear Where the Danger Was Coming from\u201d, Nadiia Kovalchuk, https:\/\/www.moksop.org\/ynterv\u2013iu\u2013s\u2013myshey\u2013pedanom\u2013vse\u2013strakhy\u2013v\u2013kontse\u2013sovetskoho\u2013soiuza\u2013b\u2013ly\u2013sviazan\u2013s\u2013tem\u2013chto\u2013neponiatno\u2013otkuda\u2013ydet\u2013opasniost\/. <\/span><\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Photography artist as a term implanted into the Soviet art history discourse requires a separate thorough study. It helps structure the system of Soviet photography aesthetics, understand its fundamental hierarchy and the dominating logic of Manichaean oppositions. Here we\u2019ll just mark out the main lines for its definition, and to do this, we\u2019ll need to consider the main ideas of the <\/span>Creative Photography (Tvorcheskaya fotografia)<\/span><\/i> monograph (Moscow, Planeta, first published in 1985)\u00a0 by Sergei Morozov 4<\/a><\/sup>In the preface to his book Yesterday\u2019s Sandwich, Boris Mikhailov mentions Sergiy Morozov, \u201cI\u2019d like to mention the conversation I once had with Morozov, a very famous critic in Soviet times, who was in charge of censorship in the sphere of photography. When he saw Superimpositions he suddenly yelled, \u2018What\u2019s that? That\u2019s hideous!\u2019 I replied that \u2018the hideous\u2019 is as well one of art categories. Morozov fell silent for a second and then said, \u2018As long as I\u2019m alive this won\u2019t be demonstrated!\u2019 And indeed in Soviet time that series wasn\u2019t officially shown\u201d. See Boris Mikha\u00eflov, Yesterday\u2018s Sandwich, Londres, Phaidon, 2006.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>, an influential Soviet photography critic. The first thing that catches the eye is the borrowing of the concept of social development according to the historical materialism doctrine applied to the history of photography: from its very beginning, photography had to work its hard and thorny way to reach its accomplished state in socialist realism reportage 5<\/a><\/sup>The critic emphasises the major axes that guide the history of photography to the necessary and the only right path: \u201cThe creative work of three photographers, three personalities, \u2014 a Russian, Maksim Dmitriev, an American, Alfred Stieglitz and a French, Eugene Atget \u2014 in our point of view is what characterises the turn of photography towards the truth of life on the cusp of centuries.\u201d See Sergey Morozov, Creative Photography, Moscow, Planeta, 1986 (the second edition), p. 117. He also complains about the shortsightedness of photography critics in the 1840-1860s: \u201cThe aesthetics was far from the artistic value of documentation or authenticity inherent to the nature of photography.\u201d See Ibid., p.30. However, it is important to point out that \u201ccreative method of social realism\u201d, according to Morozov, could be applied in other methods as well with the exception of candid photography: \u201cWorking with any photography method, Soviet photographers go beyond the principles of the social realism aesthetics. They find the standardized in the life of the society [\u2026], note something new that, if expressed in a visual image, shows the life of our people in the progressive advance towards communism.\u201d See Ibid, p. 250.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>. On the way, photographers oscillate between two opposite poles: \u201cthe photography of life\u201d and \u201cpicture photography\u201d. It can be noticed that the transhistorical array of positive, synonymic and descriptive terms of the first one is \u201cinstant photograph\u201d, \u201cthe truth of life\u201d, \u201cauthenticity\u201d, \u201cnon-staged reality\u201d,\u00a0 \u201crealistic device\u201d,\u00a0 spontaneous, documental and candid photography. The opposite array consists of interchangeable signifiers like \u201cphotography artists\u201d, \u201cimpressionism in photography\u201d, \u201cpictorialism\u201d, \u201cthe old school\u201d, creating a new reality, photo graphics, metaphorical form-creation, experimental, laboratory and fantastic photography. In Morozov\u2019s analysis, everything that the second pole deserves is condescension and superiority shading into explicit hostility 6<\/a><\/sup>It is important to note, however, that adjectives \u201cartistic\u201d and \u201cimage-bearing\u201d have a positive connotation in Morozov\u2019s analysis but only when it comes to \u201clife photography\u201d.<\/span><\/span>. That was the common attitude of the advocates of the official aesthetics, which characterised the whole field 7<\/a><\/sup>French sociologist Pierre Bourdeau defines a \u201cfield\u201d as spaces \u201c[\u2026] in which agents taking part in cultural production are placed\u201d. Besides, \u201cLiterary (and so on) field is the field of the forces that influence everyone entering the field in a different way depending on the position they hold[\u2026]. At the same time, the literary field is also a field of competitive struggle aimed at conservation and transformation of this force field\u201d. See Pierre Bourdeau, \u201cLiterary Field\u201d, New Literary Review, \u2116 45, 2000, p. 22-87.<\/span><\/span> of late Soviet photography. A photo reporter differs from a photo artist not only in their attitude to reality. The viewpoint \u00a0 of a photo reporter is more socially aware and thus is objectively correct in the historic perspective, which the critic tirelessly \u201cproves\u201d throughout the essay on the history of photography.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, in the late Soviet period, the manifestations that were alternative to the official \u201cmethod\u201d in art were rarely eradicated. Instead, according to the new cultural mechanisms stemming from the ideological crisis of 1959, they were hushed up and <\/span>recuperated<\/span><\/i>. The practice of \u201cart photography\u201d, a synonym of casual and innocent entertainment, continued to exist, even though on the periphery of that field. In the 1960s, the \u201cart photography\u201d was put up for a grilling by the country\u2019s numerous photo enthusiasts. In its most sterilized examples, in which it is hard to find brave compositional or narrative decisions, it started to appear in the sole specialist photography publication, <\/span>Sovetskoe Foto<\/span><\/i>. Those works, in which the focus was shifted from the image objects to their formal and expressive qualities, were easily recuperated by the official information channel. And if the cause for publishing them doesn\u2019t lie in the pretended pluralism and freedom of creativity, then it is in the techniques used,\u00a0 the optics, the ways of development, solution recipes or other original methods, the attentive interest in which demonstrates the technocentricity, so typical of the late Soviet photography.<\/span><\/p>\n One of the reasons for the predominance of the technical problem in the Soviet photography scene lies in the general underdevelopment of local photography equipment and its uncompetitiveness in comparison with the photography industry of the Western Bloc. Due to the lack of quality optics and chemicals, all the actors of the photography life, from the editor of <\/span>Sovetskoe Foto<\/span><\/i> to a regular photo club member, were interested in the search and development of the means to improve the quality of photography, disguise the defects of the materials and make the photograph at least a bit more expressive. At the time when in the West the problem of improving photography equipment was lobbied by private interest of manufacturers, general negligence of the Soviet industry regarding home appliances makes photographers craft, fix, build and basically work using the <\/span>bricolage<\/span><\/i> method and directly accessible materials 8<\/a><\/sup>Of course, this statement is less relevant to photo reporters working for periodic publications and APN or TASS news agencies in which access to foreign photo equipment was much easier compared to that of ordinary citizens.<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”183136,183138,183140,183142,183144,183146″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ custom_margin=”30px||||false|false”] Oleg Maliovany, \u201cLiza\u201d, <\/em>solarization, gelatin silver print, 1965, 30 x 23 cm, the MOKSOP’s collection.<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany, \u201cPosterized portrait\u201d,<\/em> posterization, gelatin silver print, 1970, 29 x 24 cm, Oleg Maliovany, \u201cLiza-zoom\u201d,<\/em> gelatin silver print, 1967, 40 x 27 cm<\/span>, the MOKSOP’s collection.<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany, \u201cAugust\u201d, <\/em>posterization, gelatin silver print, 1971, 40 x 30 cm, Oleg Maliovany, \u201cThirst\u201d,<\/em> posterization, gelatin silver print, 1971, 30 x 40 cm, Oleg Maliovany, \u201cUntitled\u201d,<\/em> posterization, gelatin silver print, 1970, 30 x 24 \u0441\u043c, [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_orientation=”justified” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” background_layout_tablet=”” background_layout_phone=”” background_layout_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n The creative work of Maliovany without any doubt was consonant with those common interests and the photo equipment struggle. In his <\/span>Photographer\u2019s Diary<\/span><\/i>, Jury Rupin<\/a> recollects in the first turn Maliovany\u2019s mastery of various photography methods:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_font_size=”14px” text_line_height=”1.4em” text_orientation=”justified” custom_margin=”30px|60px||60px|false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany [\u2026] influenced me a lot in this sense. By that time he had already been a rather well-known photographer and probably the only one, who had managed to master the extremely complicated process of colour photography. He was especially fond of all sorts of technical “tricks”, as he called them, which left a lasting impression on everyone with their originality and unusual brightness of colour. Each new work he brought to the photo club never failed to evoke admiration in all present<\/span> 9<\/a><\/sup>Yuri Rupin, \u201cPhotographer\u2019s Diary\u201d [2009?], http:\/\/samlib.ru\/r\/rupin_j_k\/dnevnik_fotografa-2.shtml.<\/span>. [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_orientation=”justified” custom_margin=”30px||||false|false” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n <\/span>Together with \u201cdirect\u201d portraits, the first photo works that were important for him were connected with the search of the operations for conquering and transforming photo material. They constitute a row of individual works that weren\u2019t structured in a series but were clustered in groups according to the principle of lab post-processing: monochrome (pseudo) solarisations and posterisations. Like in some other Oleg Maliovany\u2019s 1970s series (<\/span>Equidensites<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Superimpositions<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Collages<\/span><\/i>), it is the lab technique used that became the central, lineal and distinctive feature. Most often these early monochrome works were individual (\u201cLiza\u201d, 1960, \u201cA Posterised Portrait\u201d, 1970, and \u201cLiza-Zoom\u201d, 1967) or double portraits (\u201cAugust\u201d, 1971, and \u201cThirst\u201d, 1971) and in the latter, the compositional decision was always intended to defamiliarize the depicted persons, and they all at once acquire the features of monstrosity.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ header_3_font=”Open Sans|700|||||||” header_3_font_size=”24px” custom_margin=”45px||10px||false|false” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_orientation=”justified” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n The brightest example of the correlation between the technical orientation of the Soviet photography and the creative work of Oleg Maliovany (which, however, right away demonstrates obvious limits of this kind of comparison) is the <\/span>Equidensites<\/span><\/i> series (1969-1975). It consists of works in the technique that gave name to the series. The impulse for its creation was given by two events: the encounter with the recipe of the equidensites, which happened in the middle of the 1960s in a photo magazine from one of the Western countries of the Eastern Bloc, and the impression from a Moscow exhibition at the end of the 1960s showcasing the photos of the outer space interpreted in the same technique. The major object of the photos from that exhibition was space, and that wasn\u2019t accidental. The method itself was developed for scientific purposes, namely for better visualisation of the data in medical science and astronomy. The seventh issue of <\/span>Sovetskoe Foto<\/span><\/i> in 1971 informed that <\/span>Agfacontour<\/span> film made in West Germany got the first prize at the international exhibition of photo and cinema engineering achievements in Prague. The film significantly simplified the process of colour\u00a0<\/span><\/span>equidensities production in the sphere of scientific research and measuring equipment. <\/span>Sovetskoe Foto<\/span><\/i> says:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_font_size=”14px” text_line_height=”1.4em” text_orientation=”justified” custom_margin=”30px|60px||60px|false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n This film has found wide use in medical science, for instance. In X-ray radiography, it gives a whole range of benefits in comparison with photoelectric density measurement. The film is used in space research as well. In the processing of the shot of the reverse side of the moon, <\/span>Agfacontour<\/span> gave a more distinct picture of the numerous craters of volcanic origin<\/span> 10<\/a><\/sup>Marina Bugaeva, \u201cIntercamera-71\u201d, Sovetskoe Foto, 1971 \u21167, p. 26.<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_orientation=”justified” custom_margin=”30px||||false|false” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|tablet” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany\u2019s equdensites are a scientific technique adapted for a photographic statement. In this technique, every grey area gets a colour interpretation that hasn\u2019t been copied from reality but set by the author. Of course, Oleg Maliovany never had access to the film produced in the West. That\u2019s why in order to achieve a similar graphic effect, he would put together numerous black-and-white negatives, then transfer those compositions to a high-contrast photo film and then, at the last stage, to a flat stained glass film. Making a colour <\/span>equidensity<\/span> could take at least a week of eight-hour workdays of guessing and trial-and-error method. The Kharkiv audience was impressed with the saturation and contrast of colours that even \u201cdirect\u201d colour photography lacked. The indicator of definite success was that Oleg Maliovany\u2019s equidensites sold well to private individuals, which an average Soviet photographer or a photo artist never managed to achieve.<\/span><\/p>\n The results of Maliovany\u2019s work with equidensites got recognition from the representatives of the official photography: in 1976, <\/span>Sovetskoe Foto<\/span><\/i> published the \u201cOld Tallinn\u201d equidensite (1974) at the back cover. The following year that work was featured in the great Moscow <\/span>Interpress-Photo 77<\/span><\/i> exhibition at VDNKh and published in the <\/span>Photo 77<\/span><\/i> almanack 11<\/a><\/sup>Photo\u201977, Moscow, Planeta, 1979.<\/span><\/span>. Even though Oleg Maliovany\u2019s works didn\u2019t cross the state borders starting from 1976, his mastery, inventiveness and interest in lab experiments and photography techniques resonated with the inside off-ideology problems of the Soviet photography field. Those unarticulated and unstated problems determine the direction of Oleg Maliovany\u2019s creative work in general as well as the partial visibility of his separate works on the map of the official photography, despite his \u201cformalism\u201d and active practice in the sphere of nude photography.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”183160,183162,183164,183166″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ custom_margin=”30px||||false|false”][\/et_pb_gallery][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_font=”|700|||||||” text_font_size=”14px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”20px||30px||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n Back cover of Sovetskoe Foto<\/em>, no. 08 (1976). Photo: Oleg Maliovany, \u201cOld Tallinn\u201d<\/em>,<\/em> Cover of Soviet Photo,\u00a0<\/em>no. 08 (1976).<\/p>\n A page from Sovetskoe Photo<\/em> no. 07, 1971. Caption: \u201cMoon crators of the volcanic origin, photographed on\u00a0 ‘Agfacontour’ film\u201d<\/p>\n Cover of \u201c\u0424\u043e\u0442\u043e\u201977\u201d album,<\/em> Moscow, Planet, 1979.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_orientation=”justified” custom_margin=”30px||||false|false” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n <\/span>Nevertheless, besides his congruence with the overall striving for improvement of the image quality and effect, Oleg Maliovany\u2019s works were also defined by the criticised aspiration to create the distance with the world he photographs. What is more, besides the Baltic states urban landscapes, which were acceptable to the official aesthetics (\u201cTallinn Fairytale\u201d, 1971, \u201cThe Old Tallinn\u201d, 1974, \u201cKaunas 1\u201d and \u201cKaunas 2\u201d), among the equidensites there appeared portraits in which the topic of defamiliarization and monstrosity recurred (\u201cThe Age of Beauty\u201d, 1973, \u201cPhantom\u201d, 1974) as well as the motif that can be found in other series and techniques by the photographer, that is the forewarning and presentiment of a catastrophe 12<\/a><\/sup>The analysis was performed based on the works that survived or were restored by the author. The major part of the equidensites and other works created by Oleg Maliovany in the 1960-1970s were destroyed in the fire at the lab of the Institute of Soil Sciences in 1979. In that lab, the author kept negatives and prints for a future exhibition.<\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”183170,183172,183174,183176,183178″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ custom_margin=”30px||||false|false” locked=”off”][\/et_pb_gallery][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_font=”|700|||||||” text_font_size=”14px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”20px||30px||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany, \u201cThe Age of Beauty\u201d,<\/em> renewed colour equidensite, digital print, 1972\/2000-s, Oleg Maliovany, \u201cThe Act. Trio\u201d,<\/em> renewed colour equidensite, digital print, 1972\/2000-s, Oleg Maliovany, \u201cNo!-1\u201d,<\/em> renewed colour equidensite, digital print, 1969\/2000-s, Oleg Maliovany, \u201cNo!-2\u201d,<\/em> renewed colour equidensite, digital print, 1969\/2000-s, Oleg Maliovany, \u201cPhantom\u201d, <\/em> renewed colour equidensite, digital print, 1974\/2000-s, [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_orientation=”justified” custom_margin=”30px||||false|false” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n <\/span>In \u201cNo!-1\u201d (1969) and \u201cNo!-2\u201d (1971) the author doesn\u2019t think beyond the particular space-time continuum, the imprint of which bears an image created by the mechanical eye of a camera. By performing manipulations with negatives and reactive chemicals in the lab, he imagines a new world in which space flattened to two dimensions is being built not with lines, shapes and volumes but with the interrelation of contrasts between the most unnatural, Fauvist colour stains. A female naked body in them, appearing as if from nowhere, breaks the modernist planeness of the image. Its obvious foreignness together with the pushing-aside gesture of the palms that are opened to the viewer and its nakedness that rhymes with vulnerability enhance the drama already stated by the loud colours. This anxious and even ominous tone as well as the constant presence of something unknown and potentially threatening in the fabric of reality contrast with the dogmatic aesthetics of the Soviet official photography no less than the fascination with the beauty of a female naked body.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ header_3_font=”Open Sans|700|||||||” header_3_font_size=”24px” custom_margin=”45px||10px||false|false” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_orientation=”justified” custom_margin=”30px||||false|false” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n <\/span>The foreignness of the female body in the \u201cNo\u201d equidensites is linked to the way it appeared in the image: it was surprinted with the help of optic montage on the background of abstract clouds and a sidewall of a building. Montage\u00a0 (a technique of creating images with the use of optic manipulations in a lab), as well as collage (a technique in which glue and scissors are involved), was present in various works of Maliovany\u2019s on a regular basis. In 1976-1978 he created a number of works in which collage became the primary technical principle. While the above-mentioned practice of combining a human figure with a potentially hostile environment appeared already in his early <\/span>Tanya<\/span><\/i> series, it became fundamental in 1976-1978 collages.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.moksop.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/6.-.jpg” title_text=”\u041e\u043b\u0435\u0433 \u041c\u0430\u043b\u044c\u043e\u0432\u0430\u043d\u0438\u0439, \u201c\u041f\u0430\u043c\u2019\u044f\u0442\u044c\u201d, \u0441\u0435\u0440\u0456\u044f \u0422\u0430\u043d\u044f, \u0444\u043e\u0442\u043e\u043c\u043e\u043d\u0442\u0430\u0436, \u0441\u0440\u0456\u0431\u043d\u043e-\u0436\u0435\u043b\u0430\u0442\u0438\u043d\u043e\u0432\u0438\u0439 \u0434\u0440\u0443\u043a, 1970, 30 x 40 \u0441\u043c, \u043a\u043e\u043b\u0435\u043a\u0446\u0456\u044f MOKSOP.” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ custom_margin=”30px||||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_font=”|700|||||||” text_font_size=”14px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”20px||30px||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n Oleg Maliovany, \u201cMemory\u201d,<\/em> Tania<\/em> series,\u00a0 photomontage, gelatin silver print, 1971, [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_orientation=”justified” custom_margin=”30px||||false|false” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”left” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n In 1976, the main news of the photographic Kharkiv was the <\/span>Gravitation<\/span><\/i> series newly created by Oleg Maliovany. The same year, the post stopped shipping the photographer\u2019s works abroad, never giving an official explanation to that. Yet in the short period of time that had passed from creating the series till the shipping blockage, he had managed to take part in multiple international FIAP salons that were famous among the Soviet photo artists and receive numerous awards with his <\/span>Gravitation<\/span><\/i> series. Just like in the case with the equidensites, the extraordinary success of Maliovany\u2019s collages with the audience is again proven by almost exclusive demand for them in the city\u2019s improvised shadow photography market.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span>the MOKSOP’s collection<\/span>.<\/p>\n
40,5 \u0445 30 cm, the Grynovs’ collection.<\/p>\n
the MOKSOP’s collection.<\/p>\nThe Blur of the Late Soviet Aesthetics: Reporters against Photo Artists, the Principle of Recuperation and the Tyranny of the Technical Problem<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n[\/et_pb_gallery][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ text_font=”|700|||||||” text_font_size=”14px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”20px||30px||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false”]<\/p>\n
the MOKSOP’s collection.<\/p>\n
the MOKSOP’s collection.<\/p>\n
the MOKSOP’s collection.<\/p>\n
the MOKSOP’s collection.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nThe Dialectics of Equidensites<\/b><\/h3>\n
colour equidensite, 1974.<\/p>\n
40 \u0445 30,5 cm, the Grynov’s collection.<\/p>\n
40 \u0445 30 cm, the Grynov’s collection.<\/p>\n
40 \u0445 30 cm, the Grynov’s collection.<\/p>\n
41,5 \u0445 30,5 cm, the Grynov’s collection.<\/p>\n
\u00a030 \u0445 35,5 cm, the Grynov’s collection.<\/p>\nThe Montage World of Dreams and Nightmares<\/b><\/h3>\n
30 x 40 cm, the MOKSOP’s collection.<\/p>\n