Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow | Museum | Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow | Museum

Archive

You can say that the archive is truly the heart of the museum. The place is always quiet and chilly, and no strangers ever wander in here. MAMM's collection currently consists of over 80 thousand prints and negatives.

There are no chronological or thematic limits here. All photographic techniques are represented: from the earliest daguerreotypes of the mid-19 century, ferrotypes and ambrotypes to the newest digital technologies.

Our collection is proud to include works of the classics of Russian photography such as Maxim Dmitriev, Pyotr Pavlov, Carl and Victor Bull, Moisey Nappelbaum, Alexander Grinberg, Max Penson, Alexander Rodchenko, Arkady Shaikhet, Boris Ignatovich, Ivan Shagin, Yevgeny Khaldei, Vsevolod Tarasevich, Dmitry Baltermants and many others. MAMM also supports a number of contemporary Russian photographers and artists who include photography into their art, such as Alexander Slusarev, Sergey Borisov, Vladimir Kupriyanov, Igor Mukhin and others.

Naturally there is a record of every folder or box detailing the author, year, exact storage location and other useful information.

The curators are very careful and wear gloves when handling the prints

Up to one hundred thousand items are stored in the museum archives. Negatives, prints, cards, stereo images and diverse printed matter. The curators are each responsible for their own section

There are numerous boxes with prints, but you quickly find whatever is needed using the register

The chief curator looking at a photograph album

Photographs are protected by a passe-partout, frame and glass before exhibition

Anna Razina holds a glass negative more than one hundred years old. It is now a positive image due to chemical reactions

These are stereo images. Also on glass, they were made slightly later – in the first third of the 20th century. They appear in 3D when observed through a special viewer

The author of these stereo images with his wife

Another glass negative. Old, but not enough to make it a positive image

While prints are kept in folders and stereo cards or glass negatives in boxes, negatives must be preserved in a special refrigerator like a separate room

Anastasia Korotkova with images by Dmitry Baltermants prepared for transportation to an exhibition in Spain

Anastasia Korotkova hurries about her work

Judicious arrangement of storage space is very important. These racks slide apart on rails to clear a path to the shelves