Photography exhibit draws back the ‘Porous Curtain’

The art world in post-Stalinist Russia has been brought to center stage through the works of Russian photographer Anatoly Pronin, on display at the Harriman Institute in the International Affairs Building.

“Behind the Porous Curtain,” an exhibit of 18 photographs, depicts famous performers in theater, dance, and film backstage or in rehearsal in 1970s Russia.

“This is very important because it shows that in the ’70s, Russia started to open the doors a little bit,” said Regina Khidekel, founder and executive director of the Russian American Cultural Center and the curator of the exhibit. “The iron curtain became more porous.”

After Stalin’s death in 1953, Western influences started to make their way back into the Soviet Union, and artistic exchanges, though limited, began to reshape perspectives on art. It was in this environment that Pronin studied photography at Leningrad State University before moving to the United States, and later traveling the world taking and showcasing photographs. Part of the

“Fragments of the Past” series, a collaboration between the Russian American Cultural Center and the Harriman Institute, Pronin’s photography exhibit draws back the curtain on a pivotal period in art.

Khidekel said that Pronin’s photography is the perfect artistic medium to illustrate this time period. “Photography brings time back,” she said. “It’s like a time capsule.”

Under Stalin’s reign, art in the USSR was strictly controlled and forced to conform to socialist realism. Four types of art were unrecognized by the state—religious, erotic, formalist, and political—which pushed abstract or expressionist artists out of the picture. Pronin captures the world of post-Stalinist Russian art with a strong use of lighting and shadow, and with lyrical and dramatic compositions, focusing more on the overall effect and less on the subjects themselves.

Khidekel said that these tight restrictions on art existed because the government “understood that style is important. If they kept you in the frame of socialist realism style, they had an idea that they controlled you. If you were doing something avant-garde, it was by association not conformist.”

George Balanchine is featured in some of Pronin’s photographs during his visit to the Leningrad Museum of Theatre. In performances of Balanchine’s “Agon,” which was shown in Moscow in 1962, the female dancers wore pink tights and black leotards, the men black tights and shirts. There were no elaborate costumes or detailed sets.

“In other words, it was stripped of what had remained, in the Soviet Union, considered necessary accessories for a performance,” said Lynn Garafola, dance historian, critic, and Barnard professor.

Pronin’s photographs capture this changing ballet world—pared-down sets and costumes, complex modern choreography, and international influences.

Leonid Jakobson, one of the other artists portrayed in Pronin’s photographs, was a Russian choreographer whose pieces were severely censored and who was forbidden from working for six years.

Pronin’s photographs show him directing a rehearsal of a dance about a Jewish wedding.

Also featured in Pronin’s work are Russian performers such as Alla Osipenko and John Markovsky, and French performers Marcel Marceau and Roland Petit, who were able to bring their performances to Russia in the 1960s and ’70s.

Khidekel said that Pronin’s photographs of these artists bring the viewer back to an incredibly significant moment in history: “The fact that these exchanges took place in the ’60s and ’70s—it was a sign, maybe, that Soviet power was a little bit shaken, that they couldn’t really isolate such a big country from the world.”

The exhibit opened on Jan. 23 and runs until March 10.

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