The project introduces Nizhny Novgorod residents and visitors to the mysterious and distant lands of Chukotka, whose soul and essence are reflected in photographic prints that tell the story of the artist’s unconditional love for this place. For more than 20 years Ida Taube has literally lived the culture of Chukotka, heading the Chukotka branch of the Russian Red Cross all these years. During that time she has managed to visit the most remote corners of the autonomous okrug, seeing what is accessible only to the eyes of the indigenous people and expeditioners.
The artist presents 60 unique images. The photographer’s works balance between documentary and artistic photography; some of them deliberately look amateurish, but it is in this contradiction that Ida Taube’s creative search lies.
The smiles of the indigenous people — sincere, incidental, caught by the camera in that split second — here are the portraits “Happy Person,” “Youth of Chukotka,” “Ainana — keeper of the Yupik.” The artist’s urge to record life as it is does not preclude a thoughtful, consistent approach to assembling images of Chukotka. The arranged light and composition in the work “Grandfather Sergei. Amguema tundra” only emphasize the grandeur and distinctiveness of the ethnic “real person” who continues to live in harmony with the amazing northern nature surrounding him.
Alongside portraiture in Ida Taube’s work goes the landscape genre. It is fascinating to watch a kaleidoscope of deep images of Chukotka (“Fox’s Smile,” “To the Portal of Light. On the Eve of the Blizzard,” “Reindeer Cycle. Erakor Festival. Amguema”) and entirely new unexpected views of the contemporary northern town and its inhabitants (“The northernmost floating nuclear power plant. Pevek,” “Anadyr. Otke 38”). Urbanization, from which one cannot escape even here in the most remote corner of our vast Motherland, sounds different in Ida Taube’s works: a scatter of colorful houses, smoking substation stacks, port cranes embraced by endless snowy and marine expanses and mountain ranges seem very small. The intertwining of the surviving nomadic way of life of an ancient civilization with modern forms, materials, capacities, and technologies becomes a new reality that the artist seeks to show us.
As the primary method of presenting the works, Ida Taube chose lamination of the photographic print, thereby emphasizing the material substance of the depicted and making the boundary between us and the subject captured in the photo less evident.
The photographs at the exhibition are complemented by audio accompaniment: simply point your smartphone camera at the QR code placed next to the works, and the stories about the people, places, and culture of the “shore of two oceans” will immerse you in this special world whose images Ida Taube gathers and shows us bit by bit.
The exhibition will be open to visitors at NGHM | ART OF THE 20TH CENTURY (Minin and Pozharsky Square, 2/2) until September 3, 2024.
