This is a series of photographs depicting extinct Russian villages, set on fire. The project was criticized a lot for being provocative and destroying private property and cultural heritage (Borisov, 2017); though, the description on artist's web-site refuses these accusations (Tkachenko, 2017).

Tkachenko's approach to photography involve altering the reality to make the perfect image. How the fact that it is the photograph and this fire had taken place alters the meaning and the weight of the image, in comparison to the painting with the similar subject? Can the work be valuable, if the artist's methods are ethically questionable? Can the attention to something disappearing be attracted via destroying it? Which methods in art are unacceptable? How the art which destroys and this work in particular refer to the concept of The Artist/ The Author?

This work raises moral, ethical, economical questions about the art in general; as well as questions about memory preservation and destroying.

#past #architecture #photography #culturalheritage #media #provocation #history #destruction