SPONSORS

OPENING RECEPTIO

N:

March 2nd 2017, 7

-10pm

Special program of video screening

on opening night.

Post-Easte

rn Bloc Photography & Video

MAR 2 –

APR 4 2017Curated

by MARIE

TOMANOVA &

THOMAS B

EACHDEL

PHOTOGRAPHY

VIDEO

Sam CENTORE

Samira ELAGOZ

Becky FACTORY

Slava MOGUTIN

Marie TOMANOVA

Martynka WAWRZYNIAK

Masha DEMIANOVA

Pola ESTHER

GORSAD

Daniel KING

Sasha KURMAZ

Sonya KYDEEVA

Slava MOGUTIN

George NEBIERIDZE

Anya SCHILLER

Marie TOMANOVA

Irina YULIEVA

at CZECH CENTER NEW YORK

321 E 73rd Street, NY, N

Y 10021

Baby, I Like It Raw: Post-Eastern Bloc Photography

The West has grown fat, fat, fat and gluttonous. Post-WWII, it has devoured everything and spun a global web of consumer desire, shaping identity through materialism and media.

More than only geographically isolated until the early 1990s, what once was the Eastern Bloc is now defining itself with and against a consumer history it never really had.

Raw desire and energy—youth culture—come into tension with the totalitarian ghost of Stalin. Larry Clark and Gosha Rubchinskiy greet each other in the Brutalist architectural spaces of conformity and power.

Irina Yulieva Slava Mogutin Sasha Kurmaz Gorsad George Nebieridze

Curated by MARIE TOMANOVA & THOMAS BEACHDEL

West and East mix, breed, copulate, produce. Harmony Korine, you are to the West what Boris Mikhailov is to the East. If we were to find you all young and willing, easy and free…, and put you in a room, it might be something like this show. It might smell like black cigarettes, sex, and alcohol. It would be cold. It would be hot. It would shine brilliant and real. Clothing would be cast off with innocence. There might be blood on the snow and the concrete. SOME OF YOU WILL BECOME GREAT. Some of you will be lost among the plastic bottles and dirty socks. Some of you know…Baby, I Like It RAW!

Baby, I Like It Raw: Post-Eastern Bloc Photography

Photography

Video

Sam CENTORE

Samira ELAGOZ

Becky FACTORY

Slava MOGUTIN

Marie TOMANOVA

Martynka WAWRZYNIAKMasha DEMIANOVA

Pola ESTHER

GORSAD

Daniel KING

Sasha KURMAZ

Sonya KYDEEVA

Slava MOGUTIN

George NEBIERIDZE

Anya SCHILLER

Marie TOMANOVA

Irina YULIEVA

photography

Masha Demianova

Born and raised in Moscow, Russia. Studied Russia

n

Literature and Journalism. Started career at 18 y.o

. as a

producer and photographer in fashion industry after a

while left production and focused only on editorial

projects and commercial work related to fashion field.

Now switching almost to only personal documentary

projects and publishing.

The main focus of my work is to discov-

er and reflect on issues of the modern

society, concentrating on Russian

younger generation as a subject matter.

I tend to implement photography as a

tool to reveal the concealed aspects of

human nature and the spirituality

surrounding it. Following traditions of

symbolism, carefully documenting

substance of life that expresses itself

through unlimited patterns.

Images featured in number of magazines like

Dazed&Confused, i-D, Fader, Wire, Modern Weekly

China, Purple, Tissue, Port etc.

Currently based between Moscow and New York.

Inspired by the lack of diversity of LGBTQ film

festivals, he has returned to experimental VHS

with his current film, Hungry Boy. His background

in documentary shows through in naturalistic

dialogue and stark visuals depicting an encounter

between two friends and a deadbeat client met

on Grindr. It merges interviews with a sex worker

and his own experiences of the exchange of

power and youth. He touches on the the divide

between millennial queer youth and a generation

of cisgender gay men that hold onto the gender

binary.

His documentaries have been shown at festivals worldwide.

The work captures a snapshot of trans youth in rural areas of

the state. His latest nonfiction piece focused on the twilight

years of a trans woman's life in a post industrial town. He

navigates the harrowing relationship between poverty and

transness following her sorted friends through drug addiction,

public healthcare in America, and the death of a spouse. The

film was show internationally and went on to win best docu-

mentary short at the Woodstock Film Festival.

Pola ESTHER

Pola Esther was born and raised in Poland. The legend says she was kissed

by the Pope and that event made her who she is. Esther likes to photograph

nature, mostly human. In her work she reflects upon intimacy, femininity and

sexuality. She is constantly looking for visual fantasy in commodities. Not

only searching for beauty in it’s given form but also in it’s peculiar dimen-

sions. Potential for eroticism is often central and even essential to her

projects. She is currently based in New York City. Last June Pola exhibited

her series of photographs "Mutual Attraction" in Lodz, Poland. In 2015 she

presented installation “EYE.EAT.YOU” at Kleistpark U-Bahn station with

Platform Berlin.

Images featured here are from the summer of 2014 when she participated in an artist residency in Bulgaria, culminated in the pop-up exhibition “Adam and Eve - News from Paradise” at the Nuance Gallery in Sofia (with painter Brian Keith Stephens). Pola's work has been reviewed and featured in various international print and online publications. She is always ready to play and experiment.

Gorsad is Kiev-based art collective. This group is a collaboration

between two guys and a girl: Vitja, Julik and Masha. Concerning

people used in GORSAD shootings? Sometimes it is a particular

characters, sometimes it is absolutely unprompted. But in both

cases it should be distinctive and "tasty" person.

«We are in love with these people who are

not eager to please. Sometimes even the

most shy and constrained are unexpected

in their behavior during shooting process.

Shooting for us is an interesting and lively

dialogue with those who are difficult to get

in touch in everyday life.»

Gorsad

Gorsad's work has been featured in Dazed,

The Calvert Journal, Metal Magazine &

others.

Daniel King

King’s love of photography comes from establishing a connection with his

subject and creating an intimate dialog between them. King’s stories come from

street casting youth in rural and inner cities and capturing a personal window

into their lives. King started off an aspiring surf photographer at 16 in his native

Sydney, Australia. His interest quickly gravitated toward portraiture. At eigh-

teen years of age, King moved to Spain and then to London before being hired

to relocate to New York to work under photographer Steven Klein. King then

moved back to London where he continued in learning his craft under the

tutelage of photographer, David Sims.

King currently resides in New York and released his first book “Ukraine Youth -

Between Days” through Art Book / D.A.P. / Damiani Press which was published in

Febuary 2015, Daniel is now working on a visual documentation and exploration

into the lives of kids living in around the world. Having completed his portions from

Beirut, Sydney, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Albania, Niagara.

A new book is due to be released in the fall.King’s work can also be seen in Twin Magazine, Teen Vogue, Dazed and

Confused, W, Office Magazine, T Magazine, Hero Magazine.

Gorsad

Sasha Kurmaz was born 1986 in Kiev, Ukraine, where he lives and works today. Kurmaz holds a BFA in design from the National Academy of Managerial Staff of Culture and Arts in Kiev.

Sasha started his artistic practice as a graffiti artist. When he gradually left the medium behind, he kept public space as his main domain and continued to use underground strategies of hacking public space that address themes both poetic and political. Characterized by extreme simplicity of execution, Kurmaz’s work is at once direct and open to interpretation.In most of his work he plays a game of de-powering power structures, using both humoristic and conceptual interventions.

Sasha multidisciplinary artist works with photography and public intervention, video and performative practices.

His work has been published in a wide range of international

magazines, including FOAM, Krytyka Polityczna, YET, Vice, Libera-

tion, Bloomberg Businessweek, Rolling Stones, Süddeutsche

Zeitung.

Kurmaz has participated in many international group exhibitions and

festivals, including exhibitions at the Zamek Ujazdowski Art Centre 2013

(Poland), ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe 2013 (Germany),

Vienna Küns- tlerhaus 2014 (Austria), MuseumsQuartier Wien 2014

(Austria), Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography, Biel/Bienne 2015

(Swit- zerland), Saatchi Gallery 2015 (UK), C/O Berlin 2016

(Germany) and PinchukArtCentre 2016 (Ukraine).

Sasha Kurmaz

Through her realist photographic style, she explores themes of austerity, boredom,

identity struggles, and uncertainty by shooting portraits of her friends and acquain-

tances. Or simply people that she is drawn to; rappers, graffiti artists, street gang

members. All this is juxtaposed with atmospheric shots of brutalist buildings and

desolate landscapes. Space and people are closely interconnected, and Kydeeva

weaves a loose visual narrative of urban life in eastern Europe, as well as the relation-

ship between young people and their environment and the problems that arise from

that. Her series does not follow a set structure or theme; but has a continuous, organic flow. Instead, what is notable about her work is that she documents sponta-

neous moments of everyday life, through the prism of her own personal experiences

and desires.

Sonya Kydeeva - photographer, is currently living and working

in Moscow. Kydeeva’s main subjects are boys and young men.

Shooting their daily conditions, works with identity and

documentary. Her heroes represent such sort of Russian

reality, which is still in search of finding itself - flexible

consciousness and the absence of any positions in the environment.

photography

Sonya Kydeeva

Slava Mogutin (b. 1974, Siberia) is a New York-based multimedia artist, author

and filmmaker exiled from Russia for his outspoken queer writings and activism.

A third-generation writer and self-taught journalist and photographer, he became

the first Russian to be granted political asylum in the US on the grounds of

homophobic persecution. Informed by his bicultural literary and dissident back-

ground, Mogutin's work celebrates diversity and nonconformism encompassing

the themes of displacement and identity; transgression and transfiguration of

masculinity and gender crossover; urban youth subcultures and adolescent

sexuality; the clash of social norms and individual desires; the tension between

attachment and disaffection, hate and love. He is the author of seven books of writings in

Russian, as well as two monographs of photography,

Lost Boys and NYC Go-Go (powerHouse Books,

Brooklyn, 2006 and 2008) and a collection of poetry,

Food Chain (ITNA Press, Brooklyn, 2014). His latest

monograph, Bros & Brosephines, is set to come out

in spring 2017.

Slava Mogutin

George (Giorgi) Nebieridze is a Georgian artist and photographer,

born in 1990, and currently living and working in Berlin. He stud-

ied at Ilia State University Tbilisi and has a bachelor's degree in

social studies and art history. He is also known as a filmmaker and

cinematographer. Since the mid-2000s, Nebieridze has been

actively involved in fine arts and documentary photography, but

also works in advertising and commercial fields.

Since 2013 George Nebieridze

has lived and worked in Berlin.

Shortly after leaving his home-

land, he comprehended that

abandoning his origins seemed

problematic. Instead of forget-

ting, he encouraged these

sentiments and took his roots

as a tool and inspiration for his

work.

His work has one very specific direction that – on some occasions – visually and thematically

divides into several aesthetic aspects. But the photos always serve the main goal of championing

purity, stripped truth in everyday life, and the extraordinary beauty of ordinary people. His admi-

ration for color and 35mm film began at a very young age, shortly after discovering photography.

Since than, his prints have been exhibited worldwide and appeared in numerous magazines and

publications such as Hunger Magazine, i-D, Dazed, Metal Magazine and others.

«We are in love with these people who are

not eager to please. Sometimes even the

most shy and constrained are unexpected

in their behavior during shooting process.

Shooting for us is an interesting and lively

dialogue with those who are difficult to get

in touch in everyday life.»

George Nebieridze

Anya Schiller (1988, Saint-Petersburg, Russia) works in the field of personal art photography and video documentary. Gradu-

ate in Visual Journalism from Saint-Petersburg State University (2005-10) and from course of Michael Ackerman (2011).

Since 2010 Anya has several collaborations with internation-

al publishing projects (Pogo Books, Timeshow press, K

asino,

Dienacht). Her work have been showed in England, Austra-

lia, Germany and Russia in number of group and personal

exhibitions. In 2016 she launched photo workshop program

Introspection Space.

King’s work can also be seen in Twin Magazine, Teen Vogue, Dazed and

Confused, W, Office Magazine, T Magazine, Hero Magazine.

Anya Schiller

Marie Tomanova was born 1984 in former Czechoslovakia. She received her

MFA in painting from Faculty of Fine Arts at University of Technology,

Czech Republic in 2010. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn. Through

photography, performance and video, her work focuses on the nature of

identity, gender, displacement, and sexuality. Her work has been exhibited

internationally and in US, with her most recent exhibitions at SPRING/BREAK Art Show in NY (2017) and Gallery 99 in Czech Republic

(2017), among others. She curated Youth Explosion: The New Bohemia for

Czech Center New York (2016).

She is currently co-creating with Mirenka Cechova an international multi-media perfor-

mance piece, Miss Amerika, which explores notions of identity, gender, societal norms,

immigration, and the light and dark sides of "American dream." Introduced at TED x

Prague in 2016, Miss America will premiere in Prague in 2018, accompanied by an

exhibition and book of Tomanova's photos and Cechova's texts.

Sasha multidisciplinary artist works with photography and public intervention, video and performative practices.

His work has been published in a wide range of international

magazines, including FOAM, Krytyka Polityczna, YET, Vice, Libera-

tion, Bloomberg Businessweek, Rolling Stones, Süddeutsche

Zeitung.

Kurmaz has participated in many international group exhibitions and

festivals, including exhibitions at the Zamek Ujazdowski Art Centre 2013

(Poland), ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe 2013 (Germany),

Vienna Küns- tlerhaus 2014 (Austria), MuseumsQuartier Wien 2014

(Austria), Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography, Biel/Bienne 2015

(Swit- zerland), Saatchi Gallery 2015 (UK), C/O Berlin 2016

(Germany) and PinchukArtCentre 2016 (Ukraine).

Marie Tomanova

Her work has been featured in W

Magazine, i-D, VICE, Milk, Amuse,

Interview Magazine, AnOther

Magazine, Huffington Post, The

Creators Project, Art Report,

iGNANT, Nylon, BULLET, Artalk,

among other publications.

Through her realist photographic style, she explores themes of austerity, boredom,

identity struggles, and uncertainty by shooting portraits of her friends and acquain-

tances. Or simply people that she is drawn to; rappers, graffiti artists, street gang

members. All this is juxtaposed with atmospheric shots of brutalist buildings and

desolate landscapes. Space and people are closely interconnected, and Kydeeva

weaves a loose visual narrative of urban life in eastern Europe, as well as the relation-

ship between young people and their environment and the problems that arise from

that. Her series does not follow a set structure or theme; but has a continuous, organic flow. Instead, what is notable about her work is that she documents sponta-

neous moments of everyday life, through the prism of her own personal experiences

and desires.

Irina Yuleva was born in Leningrad in 1978. In 2008-2010 she studied at photojournalism faculty in Saint Petersburg.

Her works were published in

Dazed Digital magazine, i-D

magazine, Wild magazine,

Calvert Journal, British Jour-

nal of Photography, Fluter

magazine and others.

In 2012 she became finalist of Magnum Expression Award and winner of

Street Photography Festival (Moscow).

She has participated in exhibitions in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, Copenhagen, Tampere.

Irina Yulieva

He is the author of seven books of writings in

Russian, as well as two monographs of photography,

Lost Boys and NYC Go-Go (powerHouse Books,

Brooklyn, 2006 and 2008) and a collection of poetry,

Food Chain (ITNA Press, Brooklyn, 2014). His latest

monograph, Bros & Brosephines, is set to come out

in spring 2017.

video

Working across film, video and photography Sam focuses on

youth, queer identity and the exchange of power. At Pratt

Institute his experimental photography inevitably became

intwined with documentary and nonfiction video.

Inspired by the lack of diversity of LGBTQ film

festivals, he has returned to experimental VHS

with his current film, Hungry Boy. His background

in documentary shows through in naturalistic

dialogue and stark visuals depicting an encounter

between two friends and a deadbeat client met

on Grindr. It merges interviews with a sex worker

and his own experiences of the exchange of

power and youth. He touches on the the divide

between millennial queer youth and a generation

of cisgender gay men that hold onto the gender

binary.

His documentaries have been shown at festivals worldwide.

The work captures a snapshot of trans youth in rural areas of

the state. His latest nonfiction piece focused on the twilight

years of a trans woman's life in a post industrial town. He

navigates the harrowing relationship between poverty and

transness following her sorted friends through drug addiction,

public healthcare in America, and the death of a spouse. The

film was show internationally and went on to win best docu-

mentary short at the Woodstock Film Festival.

Since 2013 George Nebieridze

has lived and worked in Berlin.

Shortly after leaving his home-

land, he comprehended that

abandoning his origins seemed

problematic. Instead of forget-

ting, he encouraged these

sentiments and took his roots

as a tool and inspiration for his

work.

Sam Centore

Her first feature film Craigslist Allstars

had it’s premiere at IDFA 2016, world's

biggest documentary festival, and her

performance Cock, Cock.. Who’s There?

won the André Veltkamp Award for being

the most promising graduation work.

Samira Elagoz (1989, Helsinki) is a Finnish/Egyptian artist currently based in Amsterdam.

She graduated as a choreography BA from the Amsterdam University of the Arts in 2016.

For the last years she has meticulously explored the possibilities of encounters with strang-

ers through screens, lenses and cyberspace. In 2014 Elagoz won the visual art competition

Blooom Award in Cologne with her first short film “Four Kings”.

Samira Elagoz

She is currently co-creating with Mirenka Cechova an international multi-media perfor-

mance piece, Miss Amerika, which explores notions of identity, gender, societal norms,

immigration, and the light and dark sides of "American dream." Introduced at TED x

Prague in 2016, Miss America will premiere in Prague in 2018, accompanied by an

exhibition and book of Tomanova's photos and Cechova's texts.

We, the Beckyfactory are a collective of 4-wheel street weavers who don't paint flowers (well, not right) -- and believe thEir WorK is the statement. enJOY this motion picture.

Her work has been featured in W

Magazine, i-D, VICE, Milk, Amuse,

Interview Magazine, AnOther

Magazine, Huffington Post, The

Creators Project, Art Report,

iGNANT, Nylon, BULLET, Artalk,

among other publications.

Becky Factory

Her work has been exhibited internationally and in New York, with her most

recent solo exhibitions, Feed (2014) and Smell Me (2012) at envoy enterpris-

es, NY. She is currently working on a socially-engaged public art project,

titled Ziemia, which engages the residents of Greenpoint, Brooklyn in a

therapeutic process of reconciliation with their individual migratory stories

and will culminte in a ceramic sculpture and native plant meadow in McGol-

rick Park.

Born in 1979 in Warsaw, Poland, Brooklyn-based Martynka Wawrzyn-iak is a conceptual, multi-media artist whose research-based projects involve experimentation with nontra-ditional materials and engage the audience through visceral experienc-es. The creation of her pieces often involves collaboration with other artists, craftspeople, scientists, researchers, and the general public. Her works typically utilize corporeal sensation as a vehicle for communi-cating ideas about primal experi-ence, memory, and sociocultural issues.

Her works were published in

Dazed Digital magazine, i-D

magazine, Wild magazine,

Calvert Journal, British Jour-

nal of Photography, Fluter

magazine and others.

Martynka Wawrzyniak

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