Inside Out

VLADIMIR ANTOSHENKOV, GINTAUTAS TRIMAKAS, ALEXANDER TYAGNI-RYADNO, ALGIMANTAS KUNCIUS, ANDREY TARKOVSKY, YURI AVVAKUMOV

This exhibition charts the photographic exploration of architectural, open and interior space by six artists from the Baltic States and Russia, and reveals a range of artistic photographic practices in Eastern Europe from the 1970s to the present.

There are intimate polaroids by filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky, taken in Italy during the filming of Nostalgie in 1983, written in collaboration with the distinguished screenwriter Tonino Guerra. Tarkovsky, born in 1932 in the Volga region, is considered by many to be one of the world’s greatest filmmakers. Although he made just eight feature films before his life was cut short by cancer at the age of 54, each is an artistic masterpiece and a landmark in world cinema.

The technical, architectural images by St Petersburg photographer Vladimir Antoshenkov highlight the delicate details of industrial landmarks. Although little known in the West, Antoshenkov is one of the founding figures of architectural photography in St Petersburg, where he was born in 1933. His work is at once a survey and a study of the city.

Gintautas Trimakas was born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1958. He has taught photography at the Vilnius Academy of Arts since 1994. He started taking photographs in the 1980s, and is now considered as one of the most important Lithuanian conceptual photographers. ‘Exits’ was taken in Nida on the Baltic coast in 2013, part of a series of 36 photographs capturing a number of wooden tracks that lead to the beach.

Yuri Avvakumov is best known as an architect, artist and curator; he introduced the concept of paper architecture, which has entered the history of architecture and Russian art. In 1986, he started a series entitled: “Temporary Monuments” which was dedicated to the Constructivism of the 1920s. The themes of the photographs in this exhibition are similar to those that populate his architectural and artistic designs: wooden scaffolding and ladders, cranes, staircases and fences, trolleybus cables and advertising slogans, engineering works and historical monuments, walls and bridges.

Algimantas Kuncius was born in Pakruojis, Lithuania in 1939. He was one of nine photographers to form the Lithuanian Photography Union in 1969, giving photography artistic status and allowing photographers to take independent commissions. His series ‘At the Seaside’ (1965-2014) and ‘Sundays’ (1968-1985) are essential photographic documentaries of the time. These miniature photographs from ‘Book of Clouds’ (1985-2001) are timeless, philosophical observations.

Alexander Tyagni-Ryadno (born in Moscow, 1956) is a Moscow-based photographer. He has photographed for the major Russian magazines, newspapers and news channels since 1984, and is the best known Russian travel and urban photographer working in colour. He takes a new angle on familiar sights: his bullet-shattered photograph of Moscow contrasts with the serenity of Christ’s the Savior Cathedral in the background.

30/4/2016 – 28/5/2016
Exhibitions are open Monday to Friday 10:00-19:00, Saturday 10:00-17:00

http://www.whitespacegallery.co.uk/exhibition/insi...