Italian School

At the time of his move to Moscow, the theme of post-Soviet childhood was one of Bratkov’s central conceptual concerns. The artist’s children-related projects significantly varied as to themes and methods, but they all dealt with the social anomalies and ruptures of the socialist society, which was losing its “innocence” in a rapid transition to capitalist realism. Employing iconography of biblical subjects, Italian School, for instance, commented on the flow of religious preachers, agitators or just plain charlatans in what used to be a God-free country.

The series was created in one of the detention centres in Kharkiv for troubled children (petty thieves, hooligans, drug addicts, prostitutes). The artist also staged a theatre piece with them on a religious theme, of which a video documentation exists.

2001. Series of 11 photographs. C-print. Dimensions variable.