Leningrad's Perestroika: Crosscurrents in Photography, Video, and Music

This exhibition highlights the unique photographic, video, and musical innovations that shaped the Leningrad (now known as Saint Petersburg) unofficial art culture during the period of glasnost and perestroika. It presents for the first time photographers, musicians, and video artists as active members of groups, rather than individual producers, to underscore their collective goals as part of a larger counter-cultural phenomenon in the city. The eclectic body of material produced over a transformative decade shared a common goal: to stimulate the audience’s imagination in such a way as to disrupt everyday social interaction. Photography and video were considered unique media, able to cross the boundary between the present and the past, and thus became an important tool for fostering a reflective process. Their documentary character was exploited to reveal the city to its inhabitants, connecting individuals to the rapid transformations of Soviet society, while opening an anticipatory window into the future. Works by twenty artists are featured, the majority of which have never been exhibited before. 

Organized by Corina L. Apostol, Dodge Fellow at the Zimmerli and Ph.D. candidate, Department of Art History.

The exhibition is supported by the Avenir Foundation Endowment Fund.