BORIS SAVELEV. Viewfinder, a way of looking is the most extensive retrospective to date of the photographer Boris Savelev (Chernivtsi, Ukraine, 1947), an award-winning artist at PHotoEspaña 2024 whose gaze was forged in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. It was there, first as part of the prestigious Novator club and later as a freelancer for Russian and foreign publications, that he began to capture snapshots outside the pre-established themes and the rigid aesthetic rules of the official photographers' union.
The exhibition, curated by Adam Lowe, traces six decades in which Savelev became a tireless hunter of the anonymous life of cities, a fundamental element in his quest to reveal the fragility of the urban fabric. Chernivtsi, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, New York, London, Madrid, Dresden and Vigo, the city that took him in after he left his native country following the Russian invasion, are portrayed in the exhibition at different times. In all of them, despite the passage of time, we are able to share the photographer's point of view and understand what he is looking at each moment. Instants in which the details - a manhole cover, a shadow, a ray of light - convey emotions and reveal a poetic and complex reality.
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