CLOSING RECEPTION; Guennadi MASLOV | UKRAINA Resurgent

A last look at this exhibit, part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial.

A record of Ukraine—photos and text from Guennadi Maslov’s current photobook project, and a special curation of Sasha Maslov’s work.

This exhibit is part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial. The 2022 theme, World Record, considers photography’s extensive record of life on earth, humankind’s impact on the natural world, and the choices we now face as a global community.

Titled “To Be Determined” in the Biennial materials, this exhibit was interrupted and defined first by the pandemic, then more urgently by the Russian invasion.

Guennadi Maslov’s forthright presentation of what is and what cannot be recorded, in images from his upcoming photobook UKRAINA Resurgent, illuminates the negative space around recorded time, and asks us to reflect on which is more impactful—fragile fleeting moments or the monumental sweep of history. In Ukraine both are at stake.

Also presented is a special curation of Sasha Maslov’s work. Guennadi mentored his acclaimed photojournalist son in their sensitive use of photography to reveal the relationship between individual subjects and their context. Guennadi and Sasha Maslov are visual storytellers presenting the transcendency of humanity in a dispassionate past—the indomitability of the human spirit in an unspiritual world.