MEET THE PHOTOGRAPHER: Thursday, March 15, 7:30 p.m.
ADMISSION: free
MASTER CLASS: Monday, March 19, 7:30 p.m.
ADMISSION: $30
Dmitry Vyshemirsky is a resident of Kaliningrad. Until the end of World War II it was a city of East Prussia named Kenigsberg. Kaliningrad Region is a cultural landscape which emerged in Europe from a conflicting fusion of German and Russian cultures. The German heritage and today’s reality of his native city is the major focus of the art of Vyshemirsky.
The author attempts to expand the boundaries of traditional genres of photography. He is striving to express by means of the picture the methods he developed himself, to apply a single style throughout the images he has captured, to bring purely photographic and fine art features intimately into synthesis, and – remaining a photographer – to fill up his photographs with a wide range of painting styles.
Photo-documentary project “Post-“ includes colour slides produced exclusively in the Kaliningrad region, during 2004-2006. All photographs were taken using a tripod at a natural eye level without angle, using one camera and one type of film. Having applied this strict method of taking pictures, the author succeeded in scrutinizing everyday life. Balancing on the thin line of trivia, he managed to see a lot of interesting things in this common and ordinary life, and yet created a meditative, philosophical and poetic image of the land in which he lives.
We are open: Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
To call the work of Dr. Valentin Gertsman remarkable would be an understatement. A surgeon turned photographer, Dr. Gertsman has earned respect and support of the world’s most prestigious galleries and museums.
Born in Moscow in 1925, Dr. Gertsman endured the repression of Communism, the brutality of war, and the estrangement of his family. In 1974, he left his esteemed position as Deputy Chief of Orthopedics of the USSR to begin a new life in America.
Inspired by the architecture of Philip Johnson, Dr. Gertsman has transfigured Houston’s most treasured monuments into dazzling metaphors that continue to amaze and exalt the audiences around the world. With surgical precision, he captures the mystery of the city skyline or the invisible surface of a highway as if it were an X-ray of the architectural landscape. Although Dr. Gertsman rarely includes people in his photographs, it is hard to imagine depictions of Houston’s buildings and sculpures that are more alive than his.
Dr. Gertsman’s first professional photo exhibition was held in 1981. Since then, his photographs have been included in shows, publications, museums, and private collections throughout the world. For his contribution to depicting the rise of some of Houston’s most well-known landmarks Dr. Gertsman received three times proclamations and a Certificate of Appreciation from the Houston City Mayors including the present Mayor Annise Parker.
Dr. Gertsman’s photographs have been included in the art collections of the following museums: The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX), The Collection of Vatican (Vatican City, Vatican), Tretyakov State Art Gallery (Moscow, Russia), the French National Library (Paris, France)The Menil Collection Museum (Houston, TX), Pushkin Fine Art Museum (Moscow, Russia) and Museum Ludwig (Cologne, Germany). In addition to Dr. Gertsman`s famous photographs, RCC “Our Texas” will also feature his drawings and sculptures.
Information: 713-395-3301 or e-mail OurTexasInc@gmail.com
Event Sponsors
This project is funded in part by a grant of the City of Houston through the Houston Art Alliance
“I have been in Cuba, I have been in Havana, I have been there, I’ve seen that, I’ve breathed that air, I talk to people, I drink espresso at the open window of a small coffee shop across from El Capitolio, I even imagine Hemingway drinking espresso at the same place. The shop was very old, I mean, really old: paint of different colors was hanging from the seiling as a tear down paper, thick layer of dust underlining relief and unfinished walls, electrical wires wore chaotically streaming in were different directions like veins on an old miner’s arm. All of that gave me an impression of something very old and alive. That’s it, the coffee shop was alive! And barista, dried, tall and bold mulatto with thick and short cigar butt in his mouth was same age as the shop and the espresso was extremely good. I love that shop and was there every day. But it wasn’t just espresso, it wasn’t barista. It wore layers of time, layers of culture, layers of street noise from loud arguments about baseball and crackling sounds of vintage American cars klaxons caught in a bizarre time warp, to kipping loud silence and importance of twenty years old guardians of the revolution, watching crowds from every other street corners. And suddenly: “There’s someone in my head but it’s not me” as Roger Waters singing. Suddenly I see historical layers of Havana 19 century, layers of a flourishing and fashionable city, a city of theaters featuring the most distinguished actors of the age, vitality and prosperity amongst the burgeoning middle-class led to expensive new classical mansions being erected, layers of a city known as the Paris of the Antilles, layers of 19 century night life with champagne, glamour, courtesans, ebony sky and fresh and thick air where I’m not just breathing it, but bite-out that air. And strangely enough, all these layers slowly sinking on the bottom of the image, became more transparent and faded away, and on a top of it another set of layers fade in, layers of today’s Havana, layers of extreme colors and textures, layers of the city falling into decay, layers of foreign visitors strolling through spectacularly dilapidated streets snapping photographs of the city’s rotting grandeur. It is like in “Photoshop” working with a history brush in reverse order.
In my “Recollection of Havana” portfolio, I tried to reflect this vision, I tried to invoke that magnificent illusion, and wait, it is me in my head, time traveler and prospector contemplator.” Vladimir Frumin
For questions, please call 713-395-3301 or email OurTexasInc@gmail.com
Russian Cultural Center Our Texas is opening its doors. You will
find us right in the heart of Houston’s cultural scene, near Rice Village
and Museum district. We are here to present you with best works of
Russian speaking artists of all mediums and styles.
“Two Visions or A Matter of Fact” is an exploration into
two artists’ unique realities and childhood aspirations.
Ula Vainer’s life long lure for Georgian culture that she found in
films of Otar Iosseliani and Georgian chants had finally came alive
through the photo palette of today’s Tbilisi, Batumi and Kazbegi.
“For me Georgia is the place of wild unpredictability, passion,
irreconcilable losses, and unspoken beauty. I went to Georgia this
summer to see my dreams with my eyes… I didn’t find them,
but this is what I saw, and if I don’t look at them anymore for
awhile, they’ll turn into something else.”
Ula was born in 1975 in Novosibirsk, Siberia. Twenty-five years later she graduated from Novosibirsk State University with a major in Russian literature and language, and began working as a journalist for the daily newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda”. She immigrated to Houston just two weeks following 9/11. Soon after, she began taking classes at Glassell School of Art and continued her studies at Lamar University with renowned photographer Keith Carter.
In contrast to black and white austerity of images from Georgia see Alexander Bukhman’s devotion for storytelling through rich colors of his photo strokes about New York, Tel Aviv and Houston. Alexander Bukhman spent his childhood years in Baku, Azerbaijan where he was born in 1959. His career in engineering took him on the journey of success from St. Petersburg, Western Europe, Israel to the United States. Years of challenging engineering projects, participation in amateur theatre and passion for creative writing enriches his unique photo genre in which the essence of an image becomes a story in itself.
This event is free of charge. For questions, please call 713-395-3301 or email anna@ourtx.com
Reception and meeting with the artists
WHEN: January 12th, 2007, 9:00pm
WHERE: 2337 Bissonnet Houston, TX, 77005
Open for public: January 12th – March 12th
9 a.m. – 5 p.m. – Weekdays
11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Saturday
