Before the fall of the Iron Curtain and encouraged by his mentor Boris Mikhailov, Roman Pyatkovka abandoned his career as a theatre lighting technician and took up photography. Images of sometimes unfettered eroticism were his arm against the grip of the totalitarian state. In Sandwich Memories, young men and women stand naked against a wall while projected onto their bodies are photos of the first May Day parade in Moscow, including the Central Committee in the grandstand. The book You Wait (2016–2017), appearing in OSMOSCOSMOS, is printed on cardboard like books for babies. For this work, Pyatkovka assembled a montage of sexual scenes, hetero and lesbian, and glued them onto the pages of a handbook for future mothers. Sexuality for the purposes of reproduction and society-building is contrasted with sex for the sake of pleasure. *1956, lives and works in Kharkiv
ROMAN PYATKOVKA, DOUBLE PAGE DE/SPREAD FROM:
YOU WAIT, 2016–2017, EDITION 11/100
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