Born in 1956, Glyadyelov came of age during the twilight years of the Soviet Union and began his serious photographic practice during the tumultuous 1990s. This generational positioning proved crucial to his artistic sensibility. Unlike older Soviet-era photographers who had to navigate the constraints of socialist realism, and unlike younger artists with no direct memory of the USSR, Glyadyelov occupies a liminal positionn— old enough to remember the Soviet system, young enough to have spent most of his creative life in independent Ukraine.
He began to form his photographic language outside official photography institutions, allowing him to develop an idiosyncratic approach that draws on various traditions — the social documentary tradition of the Kharkiv School, the conceptual rigor of international contemporary art, and the archival impulse of historians and ethnographers. This hybrid methodology distinguishes his work from both conventional photojournalism and purely formalist art photography.
ROTLICHT is looking forward to present some of Glyadyelov’s iconic images in our Festival Selection, curated by Michael Laubsch. Beside the exhibition, Oleksandr will guide us personally through his work, we will have an artist talk with him and the festival will show a recent produced documentary about him, followed by a panel discussion.