History and Culture: Exhibition “175 years of Nizhny Novgorod photography” underway at the Russian Museum of Photography

The exhibition “175 years of Nizhny Novgorod photography” is underway at the Russian Museum of Photography in Nizhny Novgorod until August 26, 2018. It showcases materials from the Russian Museum of Photography and private collections.

The history of Nizhny Novgorod photography, which began in 1843, is rich in names and events. To discover this diverse photography heritage one would need to attend a series of major exhibitions. Every year the museum puts on display the best of its collections: works by A. O. Karelin, M. P. Dmitriyev and their contemporaries, Soviet photojournalism and brilliant amateur photography.

Current exposition spans the time between the early 1970s and present day. The beginnings of the modern Nizhny Novgorod photography can be traced not just in the pre-revolutionary tradition and the official Soviet photo chronicle, but also in such a remarkable phenomenon as the photo club “Volga”, that was set up in Gorky in 1973. That is why the exhibition showcases works of photographers of several generations. Among them are the authors, who were ranked among the classic artists of Nizhny Novgorod photography long ago, whose works make up museum collections, and those who took the camera a couple of years ago.

The exhibition follows the intergenerational continuity and revolutionary changes at the turn of the centuries –  the appearance of color photography and introduction of digital technologies. It illustrates the live history of photography in Nizhny Novgorod and invites to reflect on its past, present and future.