Lise Sarfati: Rough, Cold and Close: A Russian Poem

Yossi Milo Gallery is pleased to announce Rough, Cold and Close: A Russian Poem, an exhibition of color photographs by Lise Sarfati. The exhibition will open on Thursday, October 23 and close on Saturday, December 6, with a reception for the artist on Thursday, October 23 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. This will be the artist's second solo exhibition at the gallery.

 

The exhibition features 16″ × 21″ photographs of interiors, buildings, landscapes and people, taken while the artist was living in Russia between 1991 and 2000. The photographs were made in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, as well as in the Vologda region in northern Russia.

 

Presented in the exhibition are images of wooden houses in the countryside, recalling Russian architecture of the previous centuries, and more recent constructions from the Soviet era, such as metal garages, vegetable cellars and tool sheds. Destroyed and deteriorating interiors and barren landscapes are also included, revealing the undefined territories that characterized the transitional period of post-Soviet Russia. These various locations are juxtaposed with a series of portraits of homosexual boys, referring to a movement of individualization which emerged during the years 1995 - 2000 following the fall of the Soviet Union.

 

Lise Sarfati's work is included in public collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Biblioteque Nationale de France in Paris. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at FOAM Amsterdam; the Domus Artium, Salamanca, Spain; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France; and the Nicolaj Center of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

In 1996, the artist was awarded the Prix Niepce in Paris and the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography in New York. A book of the artist's second body of work titled The New Life (La Vie Nouvelle) was published by Twin Palms in the fall of 2005. Ms. Sarfati obtained a master's degree in Russian Studies from the Sorbonne. She currently lives and works in the United States and Paris, France.