LONDON.- On 5 June 2013 in London, Sotheby’s will present for auction ‘Changing Focus: A Collection of Russian & Eastern European Contemporary Photography’. This private American collection of over 800 photographs taken by artists living within the former Soviet Union is the first of its kind to be offered for sale on the international auction market. Comprising works dating from the early 1960s onwards, it showcases the work of blue-chip Russian and Baltic artist-photographers. These pioneering artists worked in the Soviet ‘underground’, operating beneath the radar of the Soviet government to document ordinary life in an experimental and avant-garde way.

Like their artist contemporaries, cutting-edge photographers of this era worked on the very fringes of official art and culture, exhibiting their works underground in alternative spaces until the 1990s. Twenty years later, these artists are now moving fast into the spotlight as buyers today are becoming increasingly interested in Russian photography as a serious medium for collecting. The 156 lots are expected to achieve in excess of £ £891,600. The estimates for individual lots range from £1,200 to £60,000.

Jo Vickery, Senior Director and Head of Sotheby’s Russian Art Department in London, said “This auction marks a significant step in the market for Russian and Eastern-European contemporary photography. It reflects the mounting international appetite for such works, and reveals the radical critical reassessment of the genre which has taken place in recent years.”

Suad Garayeva, Curator, Contemporary Art CIS said: “This unique collection sheds a fascinating light on the extraordinary and hitherto little-known photographic artwork produced in Russia during the second half of the twentieth century. The experimental snapshots, combining documentation of daily life with a fine-art are very different to the images of the region disseminated through Soviet propaganda.”

The Collection
Representing various key trends in photography in the last few decades of the Soviet Union and through the turbulence and stagnation characteristic of the perestroika period, the collection has a wide and comprehensive scope. From photographs documenting ordinary life in the USSR, to works with a post-modernist aesthetic reflecting the influence of the avant-garde in which Russians played a key role, the auction will include first-rate examples of important Russian and Baltic photographers, as well as names that are new to the market. The photographs in the collection date from 1959 to 2004.

The last decade has seen several ground-breaking exhibitions of 20th century international photography held at ‘Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture’ in Moscow, and the work and efforts of the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow since 2001 has helped to educate the public and collectors in this field.

VLADIMIR KUPRIYANOV
IN MEMORY OF PUSHKIN (1984)
£25,000-£35,000
These 16 deadpan photographs depicting a series of stereotypical Soviet women are each accompanied by verses from the emotive and nostalgic poetry of Alexander Pushkin. Kupriyanov wittily juxtaposed the dry, tired sobriety of his subjects with the highly expressive poetic language of love, youth and boundless nature, drawing attention to the hidden and forgotten passions of his seemingly unremarkable subjects. He sought to reveal the defacing effects of the bureaucratic communist society and the authoritative grip of institutions which left no room for romance and creativity.

KOMAR AND MELAMID
OUR MOSCOW THROUGH THE EYES OF MIKKI (1998), £50,000-£70,000
Vitaliy Komar and Alexander Melamid are among the founding members of the Moscow Conceptualist movement of the 1970s, who sought to subvert the Soviet ideology through art and performance. Together they trained Mikki the chimpanzee, a popular performer at the Moscow Circus, to take photographs. The blurry snapshots he captured of Red Square, similar to those taken by thousands of tourists on a daily basis, presented a radical new photographic concept. The auction will comprise a series of photographs of Mikki alongside images taken by the chimpanzee himself. Playing on the notions of art and its value, the artists questioned the role of the human race and the relevance and exclusivity of artistic talent.

ALEKSANDRAS MACIJAUSKAS
TWO WORKS FROM IN THE MARKET SERIES; UNTITLED, FROM IN THE VETERINARY CLINICS SERIES (1970)
£4,000-£6,000
Aleksandras Macijauskas, one of the best-known Lithuanian photographers, travelled to the remotest villages in his country to document the full spectrum of human life and expression to be found there. In doing so, he demonstrated the common passions and experiences of the Lithuanian people at this time.

BORIS MIKHAILOV
UNTITLED, FROM LURIKI SERIES (1971-1985)
£5,000-£7,000
Nostalgic at first glance, Boris Mikhailov’s depiction of two young sailors with a toy bear is an astute criticism of prescriptive Soviet ideology. While family photographs were often retouched with hand colouration to enhance the appearance of the subjects and scenery, Mikhailov collected such old, discarded photographs (such as the work presented here), and manipulated them himself. He sought to satirize the naiveté of the Soviet home-photography and the collective hunger for beauty implicated in its modest decorations.