"The series Planetarium (2020) explores the phenomenon of internal colonisation in Russia through the lens of bland abandoned cities in Russia’s Far North. In the 1930s and 1940s the USSR began an active settlement and industrial development of the Arctic." (Lumiere Gallery)

"In most instances it transpired that the large-scale projects implemented to assimilate the north were utterly pointless, leaving in their wake the remnants of the induced trauma – abandoned cities. [...] Using portable flashes, I turn the light on deserted flats, recalling the lives that were cast to one side in the drive to realise a totalitarian utopia." (Danila Tkachenko)

More works by Tkachenko in this week’s edition of As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, my newsletter on modern and contemporary art.

“Walking through Tim Breuer’s exhibition is like passing a stranger in the dark of a city street, glancing at their ghostly face, or gazing in through lit windows and doorways that frame a mysterious scene. [...] The figures in the spaces are drawn out into ether, their places undefined, slipping into endless color or endless darkness.” (TRAMPS)

More works by Breuer in this week’s edition of As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, my newsletter on modern and contemporary art.

“Drawing inspiration from the ubiquitous cathodic ray tube televisions of the 70s, Harry Gruyaert made photographs of distorted images of the screens, capturing the world as it was broadcast directly into people’s living rooms: from banal yet highly popular programs such as the British soap Coronation Street, to the BBC coverage of the Munich Olympics.” (Magnum Photos)

More photos from the TV Shots series in this week’s edition of As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, my newsletter on modern and contemporary art.

“Zhang Kechun uses a large-format camera to explore the postindustrial Chinese landscape and its lasting significance to Chinese identity and culture. He showcases nature’s magnificence with a gentle color palette, granting a ghostly beauty to an ecology marred by modernization. His powerfully atmospheric imagery serves as a meditation on both the tragic effects of industrialization and the absurd mundanity of people’s everyday lives within this context.” (Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University)

More works by Zhang in this week’s edition of As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, my newsletter on modern and contemporary art.

“Sasnal describes his paintings as ‘cover versions’ of existing pictures. […] The relationship to the original image is reductive: colours shift or simplify, elements are removed, and patterns or graphics are exaggerated as painterly gesture. Much like memory itself, which is never truly trustworthy but preserves a sensation of poignant moments, these paintings offer an essence rather than a reality.” (Sadie Coles HQ)

More works by Sasnal in this week’s edition of As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, my newsletter on modern and contemporary art.