Mikhail Rozanov

Selected Works

Mikhail Rozanov’s large-scale solo exposition opens as part of the Eighth International Biennale of Fashion and Style in Photography in response to its main theme, ‘Beauty: Myths and Sources of Inspiration’. Rozanov is one of the few photographers of the 90s generation that developed their own, immediately recognisable style, absorbing the traditions of early 20th-century Russian Constructivism, and late 20th-century St. Petersburg Neo-Academism.

Mikhail Rozanov (b.1973) studied at Moscow State University’s history faculty and graduated from the New Academy of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg). The future photo artist developed his taste and style in Timur Novikov’s famous squat at Pushkinskaya 10.

From the age of 21 Rozanov participated in exhibitions in Russia and abroad, collaborating for big-name publications such as Vogue, Wallpaper, Maxim and Playboy. Rozanov’s work is included in the collections of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, State Russian Museum, Moscow House of Photography Museum, Shchusev State Museum of Architecture and ROSPHOTO State Museum and Exhibition Centre, as well as the collections of Deutsche Bank, B&N Bank, Goldman Sachs, Capital Group, etc. The photographer collaborates frequently with the Aidan Gallery and Pobeda Gallery. Since 2010 he has taught at the photography department of the British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow.

Rozanov’s photographs in exclusively black-and-white format are minimalist and refined, as if following the celebrated motto of Modernist architect Mies van der Rohe: «less is more». Indeed, architectural images are one of the most striking aspects of Rozanov’s oeuvre — he has photographed Moscow architecture of the 1930s (the expressive camera angles of these photographs invite comparison with Alexander Rodchenko), the glossy surfaces of skyscrapers, industrial structures (viaducts, factories, bridges) and classical Roman buildings.

Industrial photography, an important Soviet genre from the 1920s onwards, acquires a new lease of life in Rozanov’s work. In his treatment of this motif the photographer takes into account Soviet heritage and the traditions of Russian cosmism, which lauded the concept of the ‘noosphere’ as a new geological stage in the Earth’s history, determined by human activity. The Nizhny Tagil Iron and Steel Plant, Sayano—Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Station, Samara Oil Refinery and other industrial facilities recorded by the photographer are presented not only as resulting from the development of technical aesthetics, but also as part of nature — as objects discernible from the cosmos.

In these photographs by Rozanov nature appears as it might in X-rays, or on the pages of a herbarium. Butterflies, dragonflies, seashells, fish and flowers call to mind the legacy of Karl Blossfeldt, a German sculptor and photographer active in the 1920s, whose work is on display concurrently with Mikhail Rozanov’s ‘Selected Works’.

2013 — ‘Mikhail Rozanov — Selected Works’. MAMM, MDF, Moscow, Russia.
2011 — ‘Devotion’. ROSPHOTO State Museum and Exhibition Centre, St. Petersburg, Russia.
2010 — ‘Devotion’. Winzavod Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia.
2009 — ‘Photographs’. Aidan Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2008 — ‘Natural History’. D-137 Gallery, St. Petersburg, Russia.
2007 — ‘Photography’. Moscow Arts Centre, Moscow, Russia.
2006 — ‘Architecture’. Russian Economic Forum, London, UK. Academy of Sciences. Aidan Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2005 — ‘Architecture’. D-137 Gallery, St. Petersburg, Russia.
2004 — ‘Flowers’. Fotonauta Gallery, Barcelona, Spain. ‘Flowers’. Aidan Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2003 — ‘Athens’. With Alexei Belyaev-Gintovt, Aidan Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2002 — ‘Moscow of the 30s in the Photographs of Mikhail Rozanov’. Phoenix Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2001 — ‘Surfaces’. Aidan Gallery, Moscow, Russia. ‘Viaduct’. Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow, Russia. ‘Autumn’. Exhibition as part of the Fashion and Style in Photography festival. FOTOtsentr, Moscow, Russia.
2000 — ‘Steps’. Aidan Gallery, Moscow, Russia. ‘Balustrades’. New Academy of Fine Arts Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1999 — ‘Bridges’. Aidan Gallery, Moscow, Russia; New Academy of Fine Arts Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1997 — ‘Mikhail Rozanov — Inscriptions’. Aidan Gallery, Moscow, Russia. ‘Mikhail Rozanov — Flowers’. New Academy of Fine Arts Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1995 — ‘Landscapes’. New Academy of Fine Arts Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1994 — ‘Mikhail Rozanov — Post-Industrial Romanticism’. Municipal Photo Centre, Hamburg, Germany.