Matthew Moore
Post-Socialist Landscapes
May 7 - 28, 2022
Blue Sky is pleased to announce Post-Socialist Landscapes, an exhibition of photographs by Matthew Moore.
Post-Socialist Landscapes is an exploration of memory sites in countries that were at one time occupied by the Soviet Union. The photographs in this project fall into two main groups. One set of images depicts the exact location where statues of Lenin and Stalin once stood. These photographs seem to portray obscure public squares or city parks, but to many local inhabitants, these spaces are still charged with an ominous presence. In some cases, the absence of the statue is more obvious, while in others the local government has gone to great lengths to transform the space. A second group of photographs focuses on the fate of the discarded communist monuments that once stood throughout Europe’s Eastern Bloc states. Today they can be found stored behind buildings or gathered in private parks. Placed safely away from public view, their power to intimidate has been stripped from them. Some statues have even been sold to foreign collectors and now stand in private sculpture gardens like trophies from the Cold War. Together, these two groups of photographs speak to the way local governments and municipalities influence historical narratives through interventions in public space. This project also calls attention to the process happening in the U.S. and elsewhere with regards to the removal of monuments that propagate false histories. By looking at how societies in Europe have dealt with this issue more than thirty years after the fall of communism, the project provokes important questions about how other communities might deal with their own uncomfortable legacies.
In-Person Artist Talk, Saturday, May 7, 2022
Matthew Moore (American, b. 1975) is an explorer of places, both real and imagined. His photographic process blends research and cartography to create bodies of work that investigate the way history and collective memory is influenced through interventions in the landscape. Past residencies include the Nida Art Colony in Nida, Lithuania and the Joshua Tree Highlands AIR program in Joshua Tree, California. Matthew is also the recipient of Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards in 2015 and 2018. Matthew earned his MFA from Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia in 2009 and a BFA from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan in 2000. Prior to that, Matthew followed the Grateful Dead around the country in a 1968 Volkswagen bus called “Puff the Magic Wagon.” He saw the Dead perform with Jerry Garcia sixteen times, including that epic last show at Soldier Field in 1995. Matthew is currently an Associate Professor of Photography at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland.
Check out Musee’s May Review of Post-Socialist Landscapes!