Petr Antonov. Khruschevkas

“FotoDepartament” Gallery presents an exhibition according to its program for young photographers “Green”:

Petr Antonov / Moscow
Khruschevkas. 1969s mass housing project

16 October – 19 November` 2010

Opening: 16 October / 18.00
Place: “FotoDepartament” Gallery

Khrushchovka is the colloquial Russian name for the mass produced housing, which in the 1960s transformed Soviet cityscape and lifestyle for decades to come. The country-wide construction programme launched by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had the goal of combating severe housing crisis resulting from rapid urbanisation and relied on construction of uniformly designed apartment blocks with the projected life span of 25 or 50 years. Providing minimal comfort, the 1960s housing estates came as a dramatic improvement of living conditions for former dwellers of the so called ‘communal’ (shared) apartments. Aside from restoring privacy in the lives of the Soviets, Khrushchev’s construction programme reshaped Russian cities introducing the concept of ‘microdistricts’ built from scratch together with all infrastructure. Over the years Khrushchovkas started to draw increasing criticism related to construction quality, inadequate maintenance, and poor comfort. What was once seen as a breakthrough grew to become the least desired kind of urban accommodation. Starting from the 1990s some of the large cities including Moscow began to phase out Khrushchev housing estates.

Petr Antonov was born in 1977 in Moscow, Russia. In 1999 Petr graduated from Moscow University of Linguistics and became interested in photography shortly after. Petr Antonov is a member of Russian Union of Art Photographers since 2005, and has participated in a number of exhibitions and projections in Russia, Canada, Italy, USA, Syria, Azerbaijan, Latvia, including his solo exhibition organised by National Centre of Photography of Russia in Saint Petersburg in 2005. His work has been published in Le Monde, Expert, Ogonyok, Bolshoi Gorod, Russkiy Rerporter. Petr is based in Moscow and represented by Agency.photographer.ru.

FotoDepartament Gallery – is the unique photography gallery in Saint-Petersburg. First the gallery presents contemporary Russian art and documentary photography. The exhibition program of the gallery includes three directions of work named as three channels of photography – RGB:
Red /Red Light – – the program dedicated to the authors’ techniques of manual print.
Green  – program of emerging photographers exhibitions.
Blue – series of exhibitions by well-known and experienced Russian and foreign photographers.

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Tel. +7 (901) 301-7994
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All photographs are available for purchase. Please, contact FotoDepartament Gallery, Nadya Sheremetova
info@fotodepartament.ru  / +7-901-301-7994

FotoDepartament Gallery
press@fotodepartament.ru