St. Petersburg (1991 - 2009)
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"An idea comes to my spirit abruptly: is the city itself the genuine subject? Most often it barely appears. The main focus is not its iconic sites. Instead, can we not see emotions weaving and shaping the perception of the world in a profound way? My emotions? Yes, and also through me the emotions of those who have lived in this country and endured so many horrors, catastrophes, sufferings, these millions of anonymous people it was always considered proper to represent only from without.
"Universal emotions perpetuated during the last century, like those that stir in us at the music of Shostakovich or the words of Solzhenitsyn and Pasternak, are the emotions that constitute the main themes of my photographs, to the extent of transforming the most documentary among them into elements of a novel—not reportage, but a novel, whose central theme is the human soul, its modulations inspired by gazing upon human events, with their vibrations in a major or minor key."
—Alexey Titarenko, from the essay "City of Shadows," as published inThe City is a Novel(Damiani, 2015)
Biography
Click here to read Titarenko’s essay City of Shadows, published in The City is a Novel(Damiani, 2015), in which he describes his coming-of-age as an artist, the social and political context of his work, and some of his greatest influences, in particular Dostoyevsky and Shostakovich.
Born in 1962 in Leningrad, present-day St. Petersburg, Titarenko began taking photographs at a young age and studied in the Department of Cinematic and Photographic Art at Leningrad’s Institute of Culture. He had his first professional success with his series Nomenklatura of Signs (1986-1991), a biting critique of the Soviet bureaucracy that drew on the aesthetics of Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and other artists of the early 20th-century Russian avant-garde. Working in secret, Titarenko conceived the series as a way to translate the visual reality of Soviet life into a language that expressed its absurdity, and to expose the Communist regime as an oppressive system that converted citizens into mere signs. In 1989, Nomenklatura of Signs was included in Photostroyka, a major show of new Soviet photography that toured the United States.
Titarenko rose to international prominence in the early 1990s for City of Shadows, a series of photographs of his native city made in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union and inspired by the music of Dmitri Shostakovich and the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Titarenko’s application of long exposures, intentional camera movement, and expert printmaking techniques to street photography produced a powerful meditation on an urban landscape still suffused with a history of suffering. In the decade that followed, his pursuit of the city of his youth led him as far afield as Venice — St. Petersburg has been called "the Venice of the North" due to its canals and to the influence of the European architects who helped build the city —and Havana, whose streets and buildings remain frozen in the Soviet era.
In recent years, Titarenko has turned his lens toward a very different city: New York. In this work, Titarenko brings his longstanding concerns with time and history to bear on a relatively young city known for its relentless, headlong pace. Titarenko’s distinctive long exposures and selective toning highlight the way that architecture not only gives form to the lives of a city’s inhabitants, but also stands as an embodiment of its history. Even in New York, time stands still, if just for a moment: in the defunct fire alarm boxes still posed on busy street corners; in turn-of-the-century façades adorned with the multivalent, overlapping signage of the modern era; and in buildings like the Domino Sugar Factory, a powerful example of the city’s rich past meeting its implacable present.
In 2015, Titarenko’s first monograph, The City is a Novel, was published by Damiani and selected byTheWall Street Journalas one of the best photobooks of the year. For Titarenko, the city not only shapes and influences each individual’s mindset and point of view; it is also a creative force, the stage for narratives in which each of us becomes his or her own distinct character. As he writes in the book,“Universal emotions perpetuated during the last century…constitute the main themes of my photographs, to the extent of transforming the most documentary among them into elements of a novel — not reportage, but a novel, whose central theme is the human soul.”
Titarenko creates each print by hand in his darkroom, producing a rich, subtle range of tones that renders each piece unique. Such masterful printing is particularly suited to Titarenko’s longtime interest in water and its relationship to the city, bringing out the texture and reflective quality of snow, rain, clouds, and urban harbors and waterways, and infusing each image with moisture and light.
Titarenko’s photographs have been shown in over thirty solo exhibitions and over forty group exhibitions around the world. His work can be found in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Columbus Museum of Art; the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, VT; the Museum of Fine Arts, Denver; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of the City of New York;the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Philadelphia Museum of Art;the George Eastman House, Rochester; the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ;the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the European House of Photography, Paris; the Musée Réattu, Arles; the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne; the Centre National de l'Audiovisuel, Dudelange, Luxemburg; the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow; and the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, among other museums.
Alexey Titarenko lives and works in New York City. His second major publication, Nomenklatura of Signs, was published by Damiani in 2020 and presents the titular body of work in its entirety for the first time.
Selected Exhibitions
2023
Blur at Photo Elysee museum in Lausanne, Switzerland (3 March - 25 May 2023).
Awe-Some: Time :: Materiality :: Meaningat the Harn Museum of Art (November 22, 2022 - May 14, 2023)
2022
Alexey Titarenko: City of Shadows, retrospective exhibitionat the National Gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria
Alexey Titarenko at Revela'T Festival2022 inVilassar de Dalt, Spain
2021
Alexey Titarenko: The City of Shadows, retrospective exhibition, The State Russian Museum, and Exhibition Centre ROSPHOTO, St. Petersburg
Solo exhibition at Paris Photo, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, France
2020
Alexey Titarenko: City of Shadows,retrospective exhibition, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, Russia
Collecting New York's Stories, the Museum of the City of New York, NY, USA
Alexey Titarenko, Festival Photo La Gacilly-Baden, Austria
2018
Zerkalo: Forever After, The State Museum and Exhibition Center ROSPHOTO, St. Petersburg, Russia
Pendulum: Merci e Persone in Movimento, The MAST foundation, Bologna, Italy
2017
Alexey Titarenko: The City is a Novel, Damiani Gallery, Bologna, Italy
Alexey Titarenko: The City is a Novel,Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
2015
Alexey Titarenko: Photographs from St. Petersburg (1991-1999), Galerie C, Neufchâtel, Switzerland
Alexey Titarenko: St. Petersburg in Four Movements,Manège Royal, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Paris, France
Le parfums dans tous les sens, Jardins du Palais Royal, Paris, France
Alexey Titarenko: New York,Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
2012
Contemporary Russian Photography: Perestroika Liberalization and Experimentation,Fotofest, Houston, TX
New York: Stieglitz to Titarenko,Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
2011
A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now,the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Alexey Titarenko: Photographs 1986-2010,Lodz International Fotofest. Atlas Sztuki Gallery, Lodz, Poland
Soviet Photography in the 1980s from the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection,Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, NJ
2010
Alexey Titarenko: Petersburg in Black & White, Late Revelations,Moscow International Photobiennale, Pobeda Gallery, Moscow, Russia
Alexey Titarenko: St. Petersburg in Four Movements,Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
2008
Temps perdus,curated by Gabriel Bauret, Thessaloniki Photo Biennale, Greece
Alexey Titarenko: Venice,Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
2007
Vital signs: Place,George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
DE L’EUROPE. Photographies, essais, histoires", Centre National Audiovisuel de Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Alexey Titarenko: Havana,Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
2006
Northern Lights,Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
2004
St. Petersburg: City of Water and City of Shadows,FotoFest, Houston, TX
Alexey Titarenko: Time Standing Still, Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
2002
Alexey Titarenko: Four Movements of St. Petersburg,Reattu Museum, Arles International Photography Festival, Arles, France
Time Regained: Fragments from St. Petersburg series,Manezh Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow, Russia
2000
Alexey Titarenko,Retrospective Exhibition, Galerie Municipale du Chateau d’eau, Festival Garonne, Toulouse, France
Le Temps Inachevé, Nei Liicht Gallery, Dudelange, Luxemburg
Nomenklatura of Signs (audiovisual projection), Keep the light on..., Centre National de l'Audiovisuel, Clerveaux Castle, Luxemburg
Magician of St. Petersburg, Garry Edwards Gallery, Washington, DC, USA
Biarritz Terre d'Images, Biarritz, France
1999
Ville des Ombres: Alexey Titarenko, photographies, Musée de Nice, Galeries des Ponchettes, Nice, France
1995
New Soviet Photography, Karlsruhe Art Museum, Karlsruhe, Germany
Self-Identification, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, Norway
1996
Black and White Magic of St Petersburg,Month of European Culture in St. Petersburg, The Grand Hall of St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society, St. Petersburg
1994
City of Shadows, Gallery 21, Cultural Center Pushkinskaya 10, St. Petersburg, Russia
1993
Nomenklatura of Signs,Photopostcriptum project, State Russian Musuem, St. Petersburg, Russia
1992
Experiences photographiques russes, Month of Photography in Paris, Grand Ecran, Paris, France
Nomenklatura of Signs (audiovisual projection), Centre National de Photographie, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
1990
Photostroyka: New Soviet Photography,Burden Gallery,Aperture Foundation, New York (followed by a three‐year U.S. tour)
1989
Nomenklatura of Signs, Ligovka-199 Exhibition Hall, Leningrad, USSR
Visages de Leningrad, Drouart Gallery, Paris, France
1983, 1986, 1988
Solo exhibitions, Nevskiy Prospekt 90, Leningrad, USSR
1979
Annual review exhibitions of Zerkalo Photographic Club, Kirov Palace of Culture, Leningrad, USSR
1978
Zerkalo Photographic Club Second Exhibition, Kirov Palace of Culture, Leningrad, USSR
Leningrad from another side, Zerkalo Photographic Club, Kirov Palace of Culture, Leningrad, USSR
Exhibitions
Publications
News
We are pleased to share that Alexey Titarenko is the subject of an exhibition atFestivalLa Gacilly-Baden Photo in Baden, Austria, on view 14 July - 26 October 2020.The largest outdoor festival in Europe,Festival Photo La Gacilly-Badenis entering itsthird year and is focused on photography that explores humanistic topics and the relationship between people and their environment. On view is work from Titarenko's series Nomenklatura of Signs and from his series made in St. Petersburg from 1991-2000, during and just after the fall of the Soviet Union. The exhibition is in collaboration with Camera Obscura Gallery in Paris.
We are pleased to share that Alexey Titarenko: Nomenklatura of Signs has been featured in American Cinematographer, the online publication of the American Society of Cinematographers, in a post by John Bailey, renowned cinematographer and former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Bailey writes, "This early work of Titarenko’s harks back visually to the first decade of the pre-Stalinist Soviet Union, and his montage images of found numbers and human-form cutouts starkly document the human depersonalization of what was called hom*o Sovieticus... Where the optimistic and heroic images of Soviet pioneers such as Rodchenko, Shaikhet, Galadzhev, Shimansky and El Lissitzky promised a bold future, Titarenko’s Nomenklatura photographs document the cooling ashes of a burned-out, enervated Soviet Empire, with the young Titarenko as both witness and provocateur."
Alexey Titarenko: Nomenklatura of Signs
March 2020
We are excited to announce that Alexey Titarenko's new book,Nomenklatura of Signs,is available for purchase as of March 2020.
Titarenko created the series of collages and photomontages that becameNomenklatura of Signsfrom 1986-1991, under the strict Soviet rule. This new publication presents the series in its entirety for the first time and includes a satirical story written by Titarenko few months before the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Working in secret, Titarenko conceived the series 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 Malevich, 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.
Nomenklatura of Signsincludes essays by writer Jean-Jacques Marie, art historian Gabriel Bauret, and curator and art historian Ksenia Nouril. The book is designed by Kelly Doe Studio in New York and published by Damiani inItaly.
We are pleased to share that Alexey Titarenko's work will be included in the Museum of the City of New York's upcoming exhibition Collecting New York's Stories, whichfeatures highlights drawn from recent additions to the Museum’s permanent collectionrunning the gamut from the colonial era to the recent past. A gallery of historic and contemporary photographs, opening Saturday 21 December2019, showcases works by both well-known and emerging artists, includingBruce Davidson, Helen Levitt, Ruddy Roye, Titarenko, and others. A companion gallery, opening Wednesday 22 January 2020, presents original drawings by long-time New Yorker illustrator Saul Steinberg alongside artifacts that speak to the everyday life of the city.
Alexey Titarenko at the Harn Museum of Art
Saturday 14 December 2019
We are pleased to announce that the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, has acquired a selection of prints from Titarenko’s Havana series for its permanent collection. The Harn is one of the largest university art museums in the South, with a permanent collection of more than 11,300 objects from Asian, African, modern and contemporary art, as well as photography.
Irina Nakhova at San Fantin; Titarenko at Festival La Gacilly
June 4, 2019
We are pleased to announce that a total installation by gallery artist Irina Nakhova is on view in the exhibition There Is a Beginning at the End: the Secret Tintoretto Fraternity, at the San Fantin church, Venice. The exhibition coincides with the Venice Biennale and honors the Italian Renaissance painter, Tintoretto. Also on view in the exhibition is Tintoretto’s Minerva Sending Away Mars from Peace and Prosperity (1576-77) and video installations by Dmitry Krylov and Gary Hill, among others. The exhibition runs through September 11, 2019. You can find more information at this link.
Alexey Titarenko’sphotographs will be on display at the Festival La Gacilly Photo in the Jardin du Relais Postal in Brittany, France. Photographs taken in the 1990s in Saint Petersburg, as well as from his Nomenclatura of Signs series will be shown. The exhibition opens Friday June 7th. Click here to visit the festival’swebsite.
New artist monographs, and Alexey Titarenko in "Le Monde Diplomatique"
November 14, 2018
Pentti Sammallahtirecently released his newest monograph, Des Oiseaux(Xavier Barral, 2018). Fascinated by the idea of flight and exploration, Des Oiseaux focuses on the theme of birds. Critic Francesco Zanot comments, “the photographer looks at birds with tenderness and curiosity, a gaze which underlies fantasy and a “surrealistic” approach.” The book can be purchased here, for € 35.00.
Denis Brihatnewest monograph,Les Métamorphoses de l’argentique (Le Bec en l’air, 2018),includes photographs of nature spanning the artist’s near 60-year career. The book also coincides with Brihat’s 90th birthday, which the artist celebrated last spring. Les Métamorphoses de l'argentiquecan be ordered here.
Alexey Titarenko’s Store 59, 1994, from the series, “City of Shadows” was featured in the November edition of Le Monde Diplomatique. The photograph was used to illustrate the article, “Le visage antisocial de Vladimir Poutine: brutale reforme des retraites en Russie” (The anti-worker face of Vladimir Putin: brutal reform in Russia.)
We are delighted that MAST Foundation, Bologna, Italy; has recently acquired a selection of Alexey Titarenko’s photographs from the series, City of Shadows. Titarenko’s artwork will be exhibited in their upcoming show,Pendulum: Moving Goods, Moving People.Organized on the occasion ofMAST's fifth anniversary,Pendulumshowcases photographs from across the foundation's permanent collection. The exhibition is on view October4 -January13.
Alexey Titarenko was recently included in a list of the world’s 52 most influential street photographers. The list was put together by the popular Vancouver photography website “Streets I Have Walked.” Included in the list are photographers past and present who have shaped street photography historically, technically, or artistically. The list is regularly edited based on changing tastes and is open to suggestions from the public.
Alexey Titarenko Museum Collections and Exhibitions / Nicholas Hughes's Nowhere Far Reviewed
January 26, 2018
A selection of Alexey Titarenko’s photographs are included in the Museum of Fine Arts,Boston; The Baltimore Art Museum; and the Denver Art Museum. His photographswas also exhibited inThe Soviet Century: 100 Years of the Russian Revolution,at the Middlebury College Museum of Art, on view from September 5 - December 10, 2017, and in Commemorating the Russian Revolution, at the Zimmerli Art Museum, on view from October 14, 2017 - February 18, 2018.
Nicholas Hughes’s recently published monographNowhere Faris receiving a wonderful response, including an article inThe Guardianlast month.Nowhere Farreflects Hughes concern for humanity’s relationship with nature — how humans both destroy and find inspiration from their natural surroundings.The Guardianwrites aboutIn Darkness Visible (Verse I), no 14(2007), “while reflecting on man’s folly in images of great turbulence and destruction, he also provides hope that the Earth will heal itself.”
The Museum of the City of New York Acquires Photographs by Alexey Titarenko
November 7, 2017
We are pleased to announce that this season the Museum of the City of New York has acquired a selection of photographs by contemporary Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko. The photographs are part of Titarenko’s New York series, shot between 2004 and 2017.
In 2015 Museum of the City of New York Curator of Prints and Photographs Sean Corcoran wrote of the series:"For Titarenko, each city and its people dictate the image he creates. His images reflect his attempt to reach a deeper understanding of place through the effects of history. It should not be surprising, then, that Titarenko’s vision of New York resonates with the work of Alvin Langdon Coburn and Alfred Stieglitz — men who strived to embody the dynamism of the city and its people in photographs at the turn of the twentieth century. As Titarenko’s relationship with New York grows and changes, so too will the photographs he creates."
Alexey Titarenko: The City is a Novel opened last night at Spazio Damianiin Bologna, Italy, which was inaugurated in June 2016 as a new facet of the renowned publishing company Damiani editore.
The exhibition, on view through 15 September, features gelatin-silver prints, printed by the artist, from throughout his three-decade career in Venice, New York, and his native St. Petersburg.The City is a Novel is also the title of Titarenko'smonograph,published by Damiani in 2015 and available for sale both through the publisher and through Nailya Alexander Gallery in New York.
Alexey Titarenko will be holding a lecture, Q&A, and book signing at Soho Photo onThursday, December 8 from 6:00-7:30 PM. Titarenko will be discussing his series City of Shadows, and will be selling and signing copies of his sold-out monographThe City is a Novel(Damiani, 2015).The event is free and open to the public.
We are pleased to announce that Alexey Titarenko will be signing copies of his monographThe City is a Novel(Damiani, 2015) at this year's edition of Paris Photo, the 20th anniversary of the fair. The book signing will take place on Friday, November 11 at 6:00 PM in Damiani's booth, H9.
The City is a Novelis the first major publication devoted toTitarenko's thirty-year career, andfeatures over 140 photographs of Titarenko's work in St. Petersburg, Venice, Havana, and New York.The monograph also includes essays by curator, writer, and art historian Gabriel Bauret; Brett Abbott, curator of photography at the High Museum of Art; and Sean Corcoran, curator of prints and photographs at the Museum of the City of New York, as well as an autobiographical essay by Titarenko himself. The book was selected by theWall Street Journalas one of the best photobooks of 2015.
Press
Le Monde Diplomatique Le Visage Antisocial de Vladimir Poutine
Studio International Alexey Titarenko interview with Natasha Kurchanova04/18/2017
PDN Photo of the Day Alexey Titarenko: The City is a Novel03/23/2017
L'Oeil de la Photographie Paris: The City is a Novel03/01/2016
The Wall Street Journal The Best Books for Photography Lovers11/20/2015
The New Yorker Goings on About Town: Alexey Titarenko03/25/2015
ARTnews Photographer transforms crowds into shadows06/25/2014
The New York Times A City's Artistic Rebellion05/31/2013
The New York Times Art in Review: Northern Light03/24/2006
The New York Times Alexey Titarenko: St. Petersburg10/19/2003