Russia: Beyond Utopia - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 081184322X ISBN 13: 9780811843225

Publisher: Chronicle Books, 2005

Synopsis

Even after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Russia remains a nation shrouded in mystery. The country's modern aesthetic includes vestiges of its past that combine and collide with its present, reflected in such unusual imagery as an ornate palace which now houses a hip-hop rehearsal studio, and the stained-glass windows of a church that immortalize the icons of the proletariat. Photographer Andrew Moore explores Russia's majestic beauty and paralyzing decay with striking honesty, often finding them in the same frame. Russia: Beyond Utopia is an intricate hybrid of modern Russia'sunresolved past and uncertain present, revealing a country on the cusp of a new era.

About this title

About the Author:

Andrew Moore's works are represented in the collections of the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Inside Havana was his first published monograp

Boris Fishman has written for the New Yorker , the New York Times , and the Nation . He was born in the former Soviet Union and lives in New York City. Visit www.borisfishman.com .

From Publishers Weekly:

This catalogue of 120 photographs documenting the traces that the Soviet Union left on Russia's landscape paints a rainbow-hued portrait of a somber country. The pictures of subway stations and airports, bridges and monuments and, above all, architectural interiors burst with vivid blues, reds, yellows and greens. Moore has a knack for framing shots that suggest the faded glory of yesterday's heroes, like a replica of an 18th-century statue of Peter the Great positioned next to a BMW and a neglected bust of Lenin next to a chained bear cub. A photo from the Fossil Room of St. Petersburg State University functions as a metaphor for the whole book: in it, lovingly displayed souvenirs of an extinct world exude a strange, warm beauty. All of the pictures were shot after 2000, and most of them focus on landscapes or objects, but occasionally Moore includes everyday people going about their lives. A few are of adolescents falling in love or getting married, while others show adults in their daily work. Yet the spaciousness of the interiors and landscapes that these men and women inhabit dwarfs their intimate human dramas and hints at the weight of history that is their burden. A short commentary by Fishman (Wild East), as well as notes by the photographer at the end of the book, give some context to these striking images. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 081184322X
• ISBN 13: 9780811843225
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176