Description
Alexey Titarenko created the series of collages and photomontages that became Nomenklatura of Signs from 1986-1991, under the strict Soviet rule. This new publication presents the series in its entirety for the first time. Working in secret, Titarenko conceived the project as a way to translate the visual reality of Soviet life into a language that expressed its absurdity, in a hierarchy of symbols that, together, formed a nomenclature – or, in Russian, nomenklatura, a term for the system by which government posts were filled in the Soviet Union. Drawing inspiration from the aesthetics of Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and other artists of the early 20th century Russian avant-garde, Titarenko captures an uncanny, darkly comic world in which language is controlled and subverted much like the Newspeak of George Orwell’s novel 1984. The book includes an introduction by writer Jean-Jacques Mari and art historian Gabriel Bauret, as well as a critical interpretation of the series by art historian Ksenia Nouril. The book is designed by Kelly Doe Studio, NYC.
Alexey Titarenko was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1962. He graduated from the Department of Cinematic and Photographic Art at Leningrad's Institute of Culture in 1983. In 1989, Nomenklatura of Signs was included in Photostroyka, a major show of new Soviet photography that toured the US. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he produced several series of photographs about the human condition of the Russian people during this time and the suffering they endured throughout the 20th century. The most well-known series of this period is City of Shadows. Inspired by the music of Shostakovich and the novels of Dostoyevsky. Titarenko's works are in the collections of major European and American museums, including The State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg); The Getty Museum (Los Angeles); the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art; the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston); the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston); the Museum of Photographic Arts (San Diego); the European House of Photography (Paris); the Reattu Museum of Fine Arts (Arles); and the Musée de l'Elysée Museum for Photography (Lausanne). Alexey Titarenko lives and works in New York. He is represented by Nailya Alexander Gallery.
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