The complex social processes of the early 1990s changed almost all aspects of Russian reality. It the cultural sphere, however, those changes took place very unevenly. Those fields that had existed in a condition of semi-legality in Soviet times – rock music, experimental documentary theatre, innovative art – rapidly expanded and developed. The field of photography occupied a sort of intermediate position in the Soviet era: the concept of “photographic artist” existed, but photography was not actually considered a fine art. In any event art museums did not collect it and hardly ever exhibited it; there was an absence of specialist institutions (centres, museums, galleries); photography’s place in the hierarchy of genres was near the end of the list.
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