IDEOLOGICAL DECONSTRUCTION AND CULTURAL RECONSTRUCTION:
THE ANTI-MODERN PHOTOGRAPHIC INSTALLATIONS OF VALERY AND NATASHA CHERKASHIN

Valery and Natasha Cherkashin continue to develop their series of artistic programs concerning the socialist epoch of word culture - and more. Their site-specific installations assimilate years of Soviet history, symbols, and values. What is borrowed from the past, they reuse for a new kind of visual expression for the 21^st century. Their art is a mirror of the diverse fabric of Russian society today. It is a multidimensional collage that combines the past with the ever-changing present.

Modern art history from the 20th century helps us in understanding the complexities of today's photographic art. The Cherkashins do not work within the standard traditions of the history of photography. Like much of contemporary photography around the world, style or subject or medium cannot categorize their unconventional room-sized works. They are a new generation of artists who rekindle the innovative spirit of the European avant-garde early from the 20th century. However, their photographic art moves beyond formalism and the limitations of the medium of photography. They abandon such standards from the history of modern art...

Steve Yates
Curator of Photography
Senior Fulbright Scholar, USSR 1991 and Russia 1995
Museum of Fine Arts,
Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe

USSR Building (50x60cm) 1997

Back to the Bright Future.(60x50cm)1997

Mirage of the USSR (50x60cm)1997

USSR-Russia: Mirages of Empires. Installation. Chevy Chase Art Center, Washington DC, USA. 1998

Mirages of Empires. Installation. Dickinson College, PA, USA. 1998

Mirage of the USSR. Installation. The Museum of Contemporary Arts.
Moscow. 2000

Installations "Mirages of the USSR Empire", The Dickinson College, PA, 1997. (250x150 cm) (250x240 cm)  (250x150 cm)