Greetings, friends! Last week I went on a guided tour of the underground, and this time I decided to visit a photography exhibition. I would probably not be wrong to say that the best photo exhibitions in our city take place in the museum and exhibition hall Rosfoto. This exhibition space is located on one of the main streets of the city in a house built in the early 20th century for an insurance company. It is a very beautiful art nouveau building with rich interiors, some of which have been preserved to this day. The exhibition centre occupies only part of the building; other rooms are occupied by other tenants. A ticket to the exhibitions costs 200 rubles, which is about $2.5.
Some of Rosfoto's exhibition halls are located in the front part of the building and are accessed via the main staircase. The other halls are located in the courtyard building. This time I decided to visit the exhibition which takes place in the courtyard building. The interior of this showroom is very simple and austere, and it suits the exhibition of the St. Petersburg photographer Ilya Narovlyansky very well. The pompous halls of the main building might divert the visitor's attention from the mysterious romantic atmosphere of these photographs.
Ilya Narovlyansky is one of my favourite St Petersburg photographers. He was born in 1921. The heyday of his photography was the 1950s and 1960s. Cityscapes are the inexhaustible source of inspiration for Ilya Narovlyansky. His photos are like poems, like music - they are light and lovely.
I saw Ilya Narovlyansky's photographs for the first time when I was a child. My parents subscribed to Soviet Photo magazine, and they kept a stack of those magazines in the bookcase. I don't remember whether I decided to look at the pictures myself or whether my parents handed me the magazines in the hope of finding a quiet and peaceful activity for an active child. I flipped through the pages of the magazine and suddenly froze in delight: the whole spread was occupied by a panorama of the Neva River, with people in a wooden oarside boat in the foreground. It was simultaneously very solemn and very simple.
Photographs of Leningrad (St. Petersburg was then called Leningrad) are the main theme of the exhibition. Besides a small number of photos of other subjects were on display. Ilya Narovlyansky worked as a photojournalist for different editions and worked a lot on his editorial assignments. Also several showcases were occupied by magazines and postcards. Ilya Narovlyansky cooperated with the Leningrad Art Gallery. His postcards with city views were published in large numbers.
After visiting the exhibition, I decided to take a short walk around the neighbourhood courtyards. I was so deeply immersed in the world on the other side of the old black and white film that I could not immediately return to the present. I needed a little pause between the two eras.
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| Smartphone | Google Pixel 3a |
| Location | Saint Petersburg, Russia |
This is my entry for the #marketfriday challenge by @dswigle.