Sergey Bratkov

Sergey Bratkov (Kharkiv | Ukraine, 1960) is a contemporary artist from the former Soviet states who uses photography to radically document and portray the changing social landscape across Eastern Europe. His pictures are a direct and at times unsparing portrayal of everyday life since the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has since enjoyed international recognition from solo and group exhibitions in Europe and the United States. Bratkov also participated in international art fairs, the Sao Paulo Biennale 2002, the Moscow Photobiennale, and with a solo exhibition in the Russian pavillion at the 50th Venice Biennale 2003.

Bratkov’s photographs have rarely been published. He is a socially critical, politically motivated artist, but his poetics goes beyond the “uncanny valley”:

My father and mother met during the war.

My father came home for two days on leave from the front. He met a pretty girl at a party.

He got very drunk that evening and vomited down the girl’s white dress.

That girl was to be my mother.