The Kharkiv School of Photography (KSOP) () is a Ukrainian artistic photography movement. It was created in opposition to the Soviet socialist realism art style, which reigned from 1934 until the 1980s. KSOP started to form in the 1960s when artistic photography revived in Kharkiv during the period of the Khrushchev Thaw. KSOP's official formation as a non-conformist underground movement was denoted by the establishment of a group by Kharkiv photographers named the Vremia Group 1971; its foundation is considered the sign of the revival of modernist art in Kharkiv.
The Vremia Group built upon avant-garde traditions and brought socialist realism dogmas into play. They are known for extreme experimentations with photography techniques and methods and are credited for inventing and developing a number of them. One of their signature aesthetic inventions is the "blow theory" (or "the theory of stroke"), which uses a shocking element to make a strong photographic statement. Another advance was the concept of "bad photography," which critics called the first example of conceptualism of Soviet photography. Some KSOP works are considered one-of-a-kind experiments in photography in the Soviet Union as well as the start of an aesthetic revolution in Ukrainian photography.
This first KSOP was represented by the Vremia Group founded in 1971 by Jury Rupin and Evgeniy Pavlov within the Kharkiv Regional Photo Club and later diverged from it. The group's other members were: Boris Mikhailov, Oleg Maliovany, Gennadiy Tubalev, Oleksandr Suprun, Oleksandr Sitnichenko, and Anatoliy Makiyenko. In 1975, the Vremia Group members joined the board of the Kharkiv Regional Photo Club and in 1975 or 1976, due to their radical artistic activity, the Photo Club was shut down. Nevertheless, the group continued unofficially, and the members kept in touch.
Later, the artists of the next generation joined the movement. The Gosprom Group (initially called Kontakty Group: Misha Pedan, Sergey Bratkov, Volodymyr Starko, Igor Manko, Guennadi Maslov, Leonid Pesin, Kostiantyn Melnyk, and Boris Redko) worked on documentary photography ("straightphotography," or candid photos). Other artists included Viktor Kochetov, Roman Pyatkovka, Sergiy Solonsky, Andriy Avdeyenko, Igor Chursin, Igor Karpenko, and others.
The latest generation of KSOP includes the Shilo Group (Sergiy Lebedynskyy, Vladyslav Krasnoshchok, and Vadym Trykoz, as well as Vasylysa Nezabarom and Yuliia Drozdek who later became members of the BOBA Group), Bella Logachyova, Igor Chekachkov, and Roman Minin.
For a long time, Kharkiv photography wasn't attributed to the city or Ukraine, and was known only as "different Soviet photography" in Western media, but today it is considered the strongest Ukrainian school of photography both during and after Soviet times. In 2018, the Museum of the Kharkiv School of Photography opened, including a publishing house. The museum, managed by Sergiy Lebedynskyy, collects and preserves works from all KSOP generations as well as other Ukrainian and international artists.
History
Soviet art (1920s–1950s)
The Ukrainian avant-garde movement, and photographic activity in general, developed in the 1920s within the highly esteemed circle of photographers. However, in the 1930s, political and social events brought any experimentations in photography to a close. In 1934, socialist realism was accepted as the main artistic style in the Soviet Union. With the development of totalitarianism, older artistic traditions were disallowed, and photographers were forced to document fictitious Soviet reality. Portraying any reality other than perfection, and taking photos of certain places, events, and objects, was restricted. Forbidden subjects included nudity, smoking, drinking, and illness, among others. In general, Soviet photography served its ideology and "utopian concepts." Official photography was produced and distributed under supervision of the Communist party.
The expression "artistic photography" didn't exist in the way we know it now, and the phrase could only be seen on the windows of salons where passport or memorial photographs were made. At the time, photography was considered a hobby rather than an art; photographers who didn't follow the rules — or even just a person holding a camera — could be jailed.
From the 1940s on, Soviet artists were isolated from European and American art, and the only "decent" artwork Kharkiv photographers could see was presented at Moscow exhibitions. Ukrainian photography experienced a revival in the period of the Khrushchev Thaw (mid 1950s–mid1960s), when the details of Stalin's regime and propaganda slowly started to surface in Soviet society. Starting with this period, new sources of information showed people that the Soviet Union was not as perfect as was pictured, and strongly influenced further the development of society as a whole and of art in particular.
Artistic revival in Kharkiv (1950s–1960s)
In the 1960s, various cultural initiatives appeared. The Sixtiers Movement started fighting to establish new forms and expressions of reality in art, bringing back avant-garde traditions. The success and longevity of artistic movements depended completely on the alternative unions and artistic "clubs" of that time, so they appeared rapidly across the country. Unions were common for painters, musicians, and writers; photographers, on the other hand, had only official photography clubs to serve as "professional unions." New approved-by-government photo clubs developed rapidly in Kharkiv. These clubs were an integral part of professional and democratic movements developing in the city's culture, and made photographic art legitimate.
It was in Kharkiv that photographic art "broke bright." Boris Kosarev and Vasyl Yermylov, the well-known representatives of the Kharkiv avant-garde movement of the 1920s, sparked a "new wave" art that resulted in radical artistic actions. The two artists and their pedagogical activity in connection with the art studio of Olesiy Shcheglov also played a key role in connecting the avant-garde traditions of the 1920s to the younger artists of the 1960s, and in handing on avant-garde principles to new generations of Kharkiv artists, such as Vagrich Bakhchanyan and Volodymyr Grygorov.
In 1964, in Kharkiv Builders' Palace of Culture, Volodymyr Grygorov, a watercolorist and avant-garde artist, started an artistic studio of photography which was attended by some of the key members of KSOP's first generation. Inspired by the rapid formation of clubs the Kharkiv School of Photography was established, making Kharkiv the capital of revived Ukrainian photography.
The scope of influence of Soviet art on KSOP is debated. According to some, KSOP denied anything connected to the Soviet Union, sought artistic freedom, and worked as an underground group, despite strong restrictions in photography methods different from the standard, a number of places, items and subjects prohibited for photographing, and frequent government searches of private and public spaces. On the other hand, KSOP member Misha Pedan stated that even while creating aesthetics which had never existed in Soviet Union or anywhere else, KSOP members still used Soviet reality as their foundation.
The Vremia Group (1970s)
In 1965, the Regional Photo Club was opened and the Vremia Group formed within their non-conformist artistic movement inside the club, making it one of the most important art centers in Kharkiv.
The Vremia Group was founded by Jury Rupin and Evgeniy Pavlov in 1971, and showcased the start of the modernism revival in Kharkiv. The first members of the group were Oleg Maliovany, Boris Mikhailov, Gennadiy Tubalev, Oleksandr Suprun, and Oleksandr Sitnichenko; 18 months later, they were joined by Anatoliy Makiyenko. Painter Oleksandr Mishchan and writer Vasyl Mishchan, whose surrealistic books were an example of the unique Kharkiv "samizdat" technique, were both close to the Vremia Group.
The Vremia Group searched for new aesthetics. They experimented with themes and printing techniques, trying to fight the conservative, "gray" state of life in Soviet Union. Various old and new techniques were combined to make photos. According to Evgeniy Pavlov, at a time when photography and art were seen as separate things, the Vremia Group's main task was to "bridge the gap." In 1970s, Kharkiv photographers actively exchanged their photographic art with Lithuanian photographers, sharing each other's visual languages.
In 1975, the Vremia Group members joined the board of the Regional Photo Club. The government didn't like their avant-garde tendencies, labeled their activity "wrong," and eventually shut down the club in 1975 or 1976. Nevertheless, the group continued as a community of like-minded artists. According to one article, their fellowship lasted 10 years after the Photo Club closed. Another article stated that the Vremia Group stopped working as an art union in 1979. After the Vremia Group stopped its work as a union, the Kharkiv art space fell quiet until the mid-1980s.
Next generations (1980s–1990s)
With the decline of Soviet ideology in the 1970s and expanded freedom of expression in the late 1980s, Kharkiv photography started to appear more publicly and gain international recognition. However, despite its strong local specificity, Kharkiv photography success wasn't attributed to the city or to Ukraine, becoming known only as "different Soviet photography" in Western media.
During the 1980s, KSOP developed further and gained a new generation of members: Viktor Kochetov, Roman Pyatkovka, Sergiy Solonsky, Andriy Avdeyenko, and Leonid Konstantinov. They were joined by Igor Chursin, Igor Karpenko, and Oleksandr Papakitsa, who did not belong to any particular photography group and worked on staged studio photography.
Other KSOP photographers started to gather into new photo groups. The group called Kontakty (Misa Pedan, Volodymyr Starko, Igor Manko, Leonid Pesin, Boris Redko, and Guennadi Maslov) first gathered in the Builders Palace of Culture, where Maslov and later Starko worked. In 1986, the group hosted an exhibition there, and Starko was fired. Sergey Bratkov and Kostiantyn Melnyk joined the group sometime later. A group photo was taken in front of the historical Gosprom building in Kharkiv, and the name of the group changed from Kontakty to Gosprom. The new generation used the methods of their predecessors as well as creating their own.
By the beginning of the 1990s, almost every member of the group had experienced drastic life changes: a change in artistic style, a new profession, or even a move away from Kharkiv.
Post-Soviet photography (1990s–present day)
Despite the deplorable social and economic situation in Ukraine after the Soviet Union collapse, the artistic life developed through the private initiatives of the photographers. For example, the first venue for contemporary art in Kharkiv, the "Up/Down" gallery, was opened and existed under leadership of Sergey Bratkov, Boris Mikhailov, Sergiy Solonsky, Igor Manko, and Igor Chursin from 1993 to 1997. Another institution, which played a significant role in the cultural development of Kharkiv in the late 1990s – early 2000s, was the Palitra gallery, organized by Andriy Avdeyenko in 1996 and over the years hosting multiple influential art exhibitions.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukrainian and Russian photography adopted Western practices. KSOP became known across the world represented by a number of Ukrainian artists who gained global recognition on the same level as many international professionals.