In memory of Svetlana Roslova

XIV INTERNATIONAL MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN MOSCOW ‘PHOTOBIENNALE-2022’ 

MAMM25

Twenty-five years ago, in the spring of 1996, the First International ‘Photobiennale’ was held in Moscow, and in November the same year our first museum of photography and contemporary art in Russia, the Moscow House of Photography/MAMM, appeared.

We opened at a time often called the ‘dashing 90s’, a period of comprehensive change: political, economic and social. Some of us were just trying to survive; others were starting a business. Artistic life was not a priority. The museums were half-empty and looked completely different from today. From the late 80s onwards exhibitions appeared at the Central House of Artists on Krymsky Val by great icons such as Francis Bacon, Robert Rauschenberg, Gilbert and George, and Günther Uecker, as well as by those Russian artists who were only recently unofficial, but have now become classics of both Russian and world art, but even then the main problem was a lack of museum visitors in the country.

We wanted to create a new type of museum – a living, constantly evolving organism focused on the best achievements of Russian and world art, but also, and above all, on our audience. It seems to have worked out.

During these 25 years MAMM has shown more than 2.5 thousand exhibitions and become one of the most visited museums not only in Russia, but also in Europe. More than 80% of our visitors are young people aged 17 to 35. The museum’s team is growing, constantly getting younger, and our wonderful young viewers help us to constantly change, make plans and devise new projects. The motto of MAMM is ‘What’s most interesting lies AHEAD!’

For the opening of ‘Photobiennale-2022’ we have prepared three expositions recounting the life of the museum in the last quarter-century:

MAMM25 is a brief summary of the museum’s main projects during this timespan. It features photos of exhibitions shown at the museum and the artists MAMM invited to Moscow. Many luminaries of world photography and contemporary art have become close friends of the museum. With them MAMM created not just one, but many projects, such as those with Sarah Moon, William Klein, Albert Watson, Rebecca Horn, Marc Riboud, Frank Horvat, Sandy Skoglund, Michal Rovner, Peter Lindbergh, etc. Photos and slideshows present the museum’s team, as well as those people who have helped MAMM all these years, first of all, the members of our Board of Trustees. Also on display are some of our publications, exhibition posters, invitation cards, programmes and other artefacts that recall the history of the museum, which has always lived and goes on living at the frantic tempo that has become the rhythm of our time.

#MAMMpeople is an exhibition assembled from the photos our viewers post on their social networks and send to the museum’s social networks. The exhibition also showcases works by students of the Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia, a structural subdivision of MAMM. This year the Rodchenko School also celebrates an anniversary – it will turn 15. In Paris in 2018 the School was awarded the honorary title of Best Art Institution in Art Education in Central and Eastern Europe. Graduates and students of the Rodchenko School have become laureates of major Russian and foreign awards in the field of art and form the landscape of new Russian contemporary art. 

Exhibition People / In Memory of Svetlana Roslova. Svetlana Roslova worked as a custodian at MAMM for almost eight years. She not only monitored the safety of the exhibits, but also communicated a lot with visitors, telling them about the exhibitions and photographing them for her very popular blog ‘Exhibition People’. Many Russian and foreign artists have subscribed to her blog, including Paruyr Davtyan, Sandy Skoglund, etc. By education Svetlana Roslova was a graphic designer, but during the years she worked at the museum she really became the soul of MAMM, loved by both staff and visitors, who came to see the exhibitions through her eyes. The Covid-19 epidemic claimed the life of this very good and talented person, and her images remained as a memory of life at MAMM and those without whom there is no museum – our viewing public.