Underground Visual Arts

Abstract

Emerging in the 1960s along with unofficial art, Soviet underground photography evolved around the amateur photo clubs at palaces and houses of culture and was also closely linked with unofficial poets and artists. This chapter shows how the transition from independent photography (that is, photography not produced for news agencies and periodicals) to conceptual photography took place when quality and composition ceased to concern photographers and, on the contrary, they begin to appreciate “poor” quality, sloppy composition, grainy prints, and manual coloring. Taking as a starting point the “direct photography” of Leningrad photo underground titan Boris Smelov, and drawing on the work of Boris Mikhailov, Igor Makarevich, Yevgeny Yufit, and Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, the article shows how artists reconsidered the fundamental possibilities of the medium and its message during the transition to the new era.