New York - Where the Energy Manifests Beauty: Photography by Alexander Movshovich

Russian American Cultural Center and Harriman Institute of Columbia University present:

New York - Where the Energy Manifests Beauty  showcases 22 art works by Alexander Movshovich. The exhibition presents bold images of New York, places where we never visit or would even be able to find. Some of them reflect the brutal technological arteries of the city such as old bridges, railway arches, building towers, mixed with a cunning extent of panoramic images of the Manhattan skyline or even a whimsical appearance of the Verrazano Bridge drowned in the fog. The cascade of the images reveals to us a view of the city we rarely see in interplay of urban texture, times, light, clouds, water and snow.

The power of images depicting iron megastractures reminds us of the time of the industrial revolution and illustrates a unique history of the city distinct from the old world perception of beauty seen in urban ensembles and classical proportions, as familiar to us people who came from Russia.

However, sharp compositional techniques and foreshortening remind us of constructivist photography which makes these images play both sides – post-industrial brutalism and Russian avant-garde tradition. A sometimes monstrous structures that sharply delineate any differences that this city possesses from the rest of the world with its energy, which ultimately manifests in its unique beauty.

Alexander Movshovich was born in 1955 in Moscow into the family of medical doctors. Following the family tradition in 1978 he graduated from Moscow Medical School and soon earned his Ph.D. Since 1991 he has lived in the USA pursuing a career as a scientist and physician. The fact that his field is ophthalmology brings “eye” speculations but he has the ability not just to see but also to think and speak through his media.  By his own words, he “was able to realize his fascination with images only a few years ago”.  “My passion burst into photography and since then I have never left my camera at home.” The extraordinary progress Alexander Movshovich made in photography in such a short time is very promising for the artist to whom “the past is a memory and the future is a dream”.

Curator: Regina Khidekel