THE SEVENTIES (The Ukraine, 1974-1978)

Vremya, a collective that practised subversive photography, was formed in the Soviet Union in 1971. Yevgeniy Pavlov was one of its founders. He wanted to shake people awake and shatter taboos with artistic photography. To the Soviet regime photography was exclusively a propaganda tool: officially, art photography did not even exist. Pavlov and his colleagues therefore ran the risk of prosecution for their photographic experiments. Two times Pavlov destroyed his negatives for just that reason. But he found that the freedom that photography offered him more than offset the risks. In his non-conformist images he touched on taboos such as nude photography and metaphysics. A first exhibition of Pavlov’s work in 1982 was shut down on orders from the authorities immediately after its opening.