These photo-objects from the late 1980s treat the photograph as a material component rather than a purely visual image. Combined with industrial and domestic materials, the works emphasize weight, surface, and physical presence.

Collection of 25 black-and-white photographs, some hand-coloured, and a notebook. Early photographic work. 1992–1993. 21.5 × 239.5 cm

Frozen Landscape addresses the subject of homelessness. For this project, the artist photographed locations where vulnerable people often froze to death. He then encased these photographs in water and suspended the resulting ice cubes to melt during the exhibition, empathically evoking the chilling reality of human loss. “One could say, for example, that I want to make a painting out of a photograph. But in fact, I want it to be more like a sculpture that has shape, volume, a

Lollipop  (1996) and Chamber  (1996) extend photography into the realm of objects and installations. In both works, photographic images are embedded within material structures—sugar, cellophane, wood, and enclosed architectural forms—shifting the image from representation toward containment, display, and physical encounter. The works were exhibited at the Soros Center for Contemporary Art (Kyiv-Mohyla Academy), Ukraine, in 1996 and 1997

In this series, the artist combined photographs from his recent trip to New York with scenes of everyday life in Horn. 1998. Series of 8 photographs New York—Horn (18 × 13 cm); mixed-media installation Goats in Horn in a community kitchen at the residence Kultur Kontakt, Horn, Austria.

Bratkov’s video installation Vagina is My Motherland , filmed in the industrial city of Dnipro, represented Ukrainian contemporary art at the Venice Biennale in 2007. (Four years earlier, the artist had participated in the Russian Pavilion.) Metallurgy, a major Ukrainian export, was filmed as a kind of sexual act. The installation also included portraits of workers in light boxes. Installation view: Ukrainian Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2007 2007. Mixed-media installation

Arguably Bratkov’s most celebrated work, the video installation Balaklava Drive was filmed in one of the bays of Sevastopol in Crimea. Premiered at Regina Gallery in 2009, the work soon brought the artist Russia’s most prestigious contemporary art award – the Innovation Prize. On encountering the installation, the visitor first sees a large screen showing a group of young men enthusiastically diving into a water reservoir, possibly in an attempt to impress nearby girls, as th

Dog-friendly show. The invitation to this exhibition in Switzerland specified that it was for visitors with dogs only. All objects were placed at dog’s-eye level and were edible or lickable: trees with real sausages, distinctive smells. The dogs were happy. The artist himself owned a dog. Installation view: Mproject 21st Century Fine Arts, Geneva, Switzerland, 2009 2009. Series of 10 mixed-media objects (C-print on wood panel). Dimensions variable.

Now, in retrospect, Bratkov’s work with the telling title Crossroad may be regarded as one of the earliest visionary premonitions in Russian art of things to come. It was also indicative of the artist’s novel methods and startling motifs, which increasingly came to dominate his aesthetic vision in the new decade. The twelve framed, red-tinted photographs — depicting typical sceneries and characters of “my Moscow” — are arranged in a montage-like manner to form the equivocal s

Bratkov’s second decade in Moscow saw a significant body of works in which images were juxtaposed with neon-light texts to create ambivalent tensions and mental ruptures. The first, produced in 2010, consisted of the neon slogan Long Live the Bad of Today for the Good of Tomorrow set against a panoramic image of a raucous social gathering — a Soviet propaganda slogan curiously reincarnated in the late Putin era. Yet the darker the decade became, the emptier Bratkov’s images a

The series examines various aspects of violence, fascism, repressive regimes, and the instruments and techniques of oppression. 2014. Series of 24 collages (C-print, drawing). 72 × 51 cm

The origins of the ‘Empire of Dreams’ project date from 1988, when Sergey Bratkov first sewed two quilt covers from the sheets of photo fabric manufactured at this period. They represented a collage of recurring scenes from his dreams. Both then and now Bratkov transforms the quilt cover into a kind of screen where fragments of dreams and memories are projected. But the new project is less subjective: here there is virtually no trace of manual labour and personal dreams are r

How long is now  is a series created by Sergey Bratkov in 2022–2023, following the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine and the artist’s forced relocation to Berlin. The works are based on photographs of everyday urban environments, over which Bratkov applies acrylic paint by hand, partially obscuring and damaging images of buildings, streets, and courtyards. Through this physical intervention, the experience of war is displaced into the context of a European city, addre

The series focuses on the figure of a woman within the context of war — not as a heroic image, but as its most vulnerable and exposed subject. Executed entirely in a black-and-white palette, the works employ a restrained chromatic range that functions as a filter of grief and mourning, stripping the images of narrative certainty and emotional comfort. Through painterly intervention, Bratkov partially obscures and transforms the photographic surface, disrupting visibility and

A long-term conceptual work developed between 1995 and 2022, structured as a visual and temporal self-record. Combining photographic images with illuminated text panels, the installation traces a personal history through quantified gestures, dates, and declarations related to smoking and attempts to quit. The work operates through seriality and repetition. Photographic images—fragmentary, bodily, and performative—are juxtaposed with light boxes displaying concise textual stat

An object made from standard plastic road barriers suspended by two cables. Removed from their functional role of regulating movement and maintaining public order, the barriers are transformed into a suspended, non-operational structure. Shown within the context of the Kyiv Biennial, the work exposes the fragility and arbitrariness of imposed order, especially in conditions of war, where instruments of control remain visible even after losing their practical meaning. The obje