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The Béton Center of Visual Culture, together with the Central Exhibition Hall Manege, presents the exhibition «Art Photography. From Daguerreotype to Artificial Intelligence».
The Béton Center of Visual Culture and the Central Exhibition Hall Manege, with the support of the St. Petersburg Committee for Culture, present the exhibition project «Art Photography. From Daguerreotype to Artificial Intelligence». The exhibition will open on July 15 at the Central Exhibition Hall Manege in St. Petersburg and will demonstrate almost two centuries of the development of photography. The exhibition will feature 600 works by 178 artists, including Louis Daguerre, William Currick, Carl Bulla, Alexander Rodchenko, El Lisitskiy, Boris Smelov, Boris Orlov, Sergey Borisov, Vlad Mamyshev-Monroe. All the works are original prints, some of which will be shown for the first time. The project is curated by Olga Michi, co-founder of CVC Béton, collector and artist, and Alexey Loginov, co-founder of CVC Béton, collector and historian of photography.
«In the nearly 200 years since its invention, photography has not only become an important cultural and commercial phenomenon, but has also had a significant impact on artistic movements in other art forms and even on the psychology of society. Center of Visual Culture Béton has set itself a challenging, ambitious, and exciting task: to introduce a wide audience to the works of contemporary photographers, highlighting their artistic and commercial value.» — Alexey Loginov, Curator of the project.
«St. Petersburg is a city where photography has always played an important role. It was home to some of the first photo studios, where magazines about photography were created, and where streets, bridges, ships, and faces were photographed. However, this is the first time the city has hosted an exhibition of such broad scope and historical depth. This exhibition, with its scale and conceptual integrity, allows us to view photography not as an illustration, but as a distinct form of thought and knowledge. The exhibition at the Manege is not just a journey through the pages of visual history, but an invitation to reflect: how we see and how we want to be seen in the future. This is a dialogue between the past and the present, between image and reality, between technology and emotion.» — Anna Yalova, Director of the Manege Center for Contemporary Art.
The project demonstrates almost two centuries of the development of photography, the evolution of its visual language and technical methods. The goal of the exhibition is to show photography as an independent art form with its own laws, logic of development, and aesthetics. From the first daguerreotypes of the 1840s to the neural network generations of the 2020s, photography has shaped the visual culture of society, influencing other art forms and the way we perceive reality.
The exhibition is structured as a journey through the key stages of the development of photographic art. The exhibition begins with the emergence of the medium itself — daguerreotypes from the late 1830s. Special attention is paid to the triple author’s daguerreotype presented by Louis Daguerre to Emperor Nikolay I in 1839, which was provided by the Russian Academy of Arts. This work marked the beginning of the photography era. Early authors include Pierre-Ambroise Richebourg, William Carrick, and Carl Bergamasco.
By the end of the 19th century, pictorialism emerged, a movement that sought to express photography through the language of painting and developed its own artistic means of expression. In this section, viewers will encounter the works of Andrey Karelin, Alexey Mazurin, Sergey Lobovikov, Alexander Grinberg, and Nikolai Svishchov-Paola.
With the emergence of Soviet photography in the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet photo avant-garde emerged, followed by the rise of socialist realism (Alexander Rodchenko, El Lisitsky, Boris Ignatovich, Arkady Shaikhet, and Georgy Petrusov).
A separate section focuses on the photographs from the Great Patriotic War, which had a significant impact on the development of photojournalism, from capturing events to creating iconic photographs. The photographs of Max Alpert, Evgeny Khaldey, Dmitry Baltermants, and Mikhail Trakhman serve as an archive of collective memory.
From the post-war period until 2000, the exhibition features the works of official photographers alongside those of non-conformist photographers (Sergey Borisov, Valery Plotnikov, Igor Makarevich, Olga Chernysheva, Alexey Titarenko).
The final focus of the exhibition is on the visual practices of the 21st century, including digital montage and neural network images: Konstantin Khudyakov, AES+F, Olga Michi, and the art group GrOM explore the boundaries of the medium, where photography becomes a means of rethinking and generating images.
A catalog with texts by the art critic, historian, and researcher of photography, Artem Loginov, has been published for the exhibition. The publication reveals not only the chronology of the medium, but also the philosophical foundations of visual thinking: how photography has taught us to see, to doubt, and to interpret.
Location of the event::
Central Exhibition Hall «Manege»
Saint Petersburg, Isaakievskaya Square, 1
The Béton Center of Visual Culture, together with the Central Exhibition Hall Manege, presents the exhibition «Art Photography. From Daguerreotype to Artificial Intelligence».
The Béton Center of Visual Culture and the Central Exhibition Hall Manege, with the support of the St. Petersburg Committee for Culture, present the exhibition project «Art Photography. From Daguerreotype to Artificial Intelligence». The exhibition will open on July 15 at the Central Exhibition Hall Manege in St. Petersburg and will demonstrate almost two centuries of the development of photography. The exhibition will feature 600 works by 178 artists, including Louis Daguerre, William Currick, Carl Bulla, Alexander Rodchenko, El Lisitskiy, Boris Smelov, Boris Orlov, Sergey Borisov, Vlad Mamyshev-Monroe. All the works are original prints, some of which will be shown for the first time. The project is curated by Olga Michi, co-founder of CVC Béton, collector and artist, and Alexey Loginov, co-founder of CVC Béton, collector and historian of photography.
«In the nearly 200 years since its invention, photography has not only become an important cultural and commercial phenomenon, but has also had a significant impact on artistic movements in other art forms and even on the psychology of society. Center of Visual Culture Béton has set itself a challenging, ambitious, and exciting task: to introduce a wide audience to the works of contemporary photographers, highlighting their artistic and commercial value.» — Alexey Loginov, Curator of the project.
«St. Petersburg is a city where photography has always played an important role. It was home to some of the first photo studios, where magazines about photography were created, and where streets, bridges, ships, and faces were photographed. However, this is the first time the city has hosted an exhibition of such broad scope and historical depth. This exhibition, with its scale and conceptual integrity, allows us to view photography not as an illustration, but as a distinct form of thought and knowledge. The exhibition at the Manege is not just a journey through the pages of visual history, but an invitation to reflect: how we see and how we want to be seen in the future. This is a dialogue between the past and the present, between image and reality, between technology and emotion.» — Anna Yalova, Director of the Manege Center for Contemporary Art.
The project demonstrates almost two centuries of the development of photography, the evolution of its visual language and technical methods. The goal of the exhibition is to show photography as an independent art form with its own laws, logic of development, and aesthetics. From the first daguerreotypes of the 1840s to the neural network generations of the 2020s, photography has shaped the visual culture of society, influencing other art forms and the way we perceive reality.
The exhibition is structured as a journey through the key stages of the development of photographic art. The exhibition begins with the emergence of the medium itself — daguerreotypes from the late 1830s. Special attention is paid to the triple author’s daguerreotype presented by Louis Daguerre to Emperor Nikolay I in 1839, which was provided by the Russian Academy of Arts. This work marked the beginning of the photography era. Early authors include Pierre-Ambroise Richebourg, William Carrick, and Carl Bergamasco.
By the end of the 19th century, pictorialism emerged, a movement that sought to express photography through the language of painting and developed its own artistic means of expression. In this section, viewers will encounter the works of Andrey Karelin, Alexey Mazurin, Sergey Lobovikov, Alexander Grinberg, and Nikolai Svishchov-Paola.
With the emergence of Soviet photography in the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet photo avant-garde emerged, followed by the rise of socialist realism (Alexander Rodchenko, El Lisitsky, Boris Ignatovich, Arkady Shaikhet, and Georgy Petrusov).
A separate section focuses on the photographs from the Great Patriotic War, which had a significant impact on the development of photojournalism, from capturing events to creating iconic photographs. The photographs of Max Alpert, Evgeny Khaldey, Dmitry Baltermants, and Mikhail Trakhman serve as an archive of collective memory.
From the post-war period until 2000, the exhibition features the works of official photographers alongside those of non-conformist photographers (Sergey Borisov, Valery Plotnikov, Igor Makarevich, Olga Chernysheva, Alexey Titarenko).
The final focus of the exhibition is on the visual practices of the 21st century, including digital montage and neural network images: Konstantin Khudyakov, AES+F, Olga Michi, and the art group GrOM explore the boundaries of the medium, where photography becomes a means of rethinking and generating images.
A catalog with texts by the art critic, historian, and researcher of photography, Artem Loginov, has been published for the exhibition. The publication reveals not only the chronology of the medium, but also the philosophical foundations of visual thinking: how photography has taught us to see, to doubt, and to interpret.
Location of the event::
Central Exhibition Hall «Manege»
Saint Petersburg, Isaakievskaya Square, 1
