ALEXEY TITARENKO was born on Vassilievsky Island in Leningrad (currently St. Petersburg) in 1962. He began taking photographs in 1971, and in 1978 graduated from the Leningrad Public University of Society-related Professions, with a degree in photojournalism. Alexey joined the independent photo club “Zerkalo” (The Mirror) that same year and held his first solo exhibition.
In 1983, Alexey received an MFA in Cinematic and Photographic Arts from the Leningrad Institute of Culture and shortly after he began to work on the series of collages and photomontages, which he titled Nomenklatura of Signs, and it is a commentary on the Communist regime as an oppressive system that converts citizens into mere signs. In 1988, Alexey had his first solo exhibition in Western Europe. In 1989, Nomenklatura of Signs was included in Photostroyka, a significant show of new Soviet photography that toured the US the same year.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the artist produced several series of photographs about the human condition of the Russian people during this time and the suffering they endured throughout the twentieth century. Through long exposure and street photography, he created powerful metaphors to link the past and the present. His best-known series of this period is City of Shadows.
Inspired by Dmitri Shostakovich's music and Fyodor Dostoevsky's novels, Alexey translated Dostoevsky’s version of the Russian soul into sometimes poetic, sometimes dramatic pictures of his native city, Saint Petersburg. His St. Petersburg body of work from the 1990s led to him being recognized worldwide.
Alexey’s prints are subtly hand-crafted in the darkroom: bleaching and toning add depth to his nuanced palette of greys, rendering each print his unique interpretation of the experiences he lived, while at the same time leading to multiple other interpretations based on each viewer’s experiences.
Much of his work is in the permanent collections of major European and US museums, including The State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg); The Getty Museum (Los Angeles); the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art; George Eastman House (Rochester, N.Y.); the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston); The Museum of Fine Arts (Columbus, Ohio); the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston); the Museum of Photographic Arts (San Diego); the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College (Mass.); the European House of Photography (Paris); the Southeast Museum of Photography (Daytona Beach, Fla.); the Santa Barbara Museum of Fin Arts (Cal.); the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University (N.J.); the Reattu Museum of Fine Arts (Arles); and the Musee de l’Elysee Museum for Photography (Lausanne).
Alexey lives and works in New York City. His second major publication, Nomenklatura of Signs, was published by Damiani in 2020 and presents the titular body of work in its entirety for the first time.
More of his work may be appreciated on his website and his IG Account.
His essay on the idea behind his book City of Shadows, may be read by clicking here. Videos featuring Alexey’s work, including interviews, may be enjoyed by clicking here.
All work displayed on The Pasticheur: Literature, Art, & Ideas is copyrighted, © Alexey Titarenko, and is made available here as a courtesy of Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York (Gallery’s IG Account)
