2003. Series of 5 photographs. C-print. 40 × 27 cm

Gigantic, culturally heterogeneous Moscow apparently dictated to the artist new scale, optics and subject matter. Indeed, soon after he settled there, Bratkov began to create panoramic views of massive gatherings of people celebrating all sorts of national holidays, beer festivals, the city’s birthday and so on. First shown in the Regina gallery in 2002, the project My Moscow was a bold starting point in that direction, which would remain relevant for the artist throughout th

The artist created this series of portraits of Buryat children at one of the official All-Russian exhibitions. The title critically alludes to the colonial and entertaining perception of ethnic minority peoples in official Moscow circles. 2003. Series of 5 photographs. C-print. 75 × 56 cm

Bratkov photographed the participating artists and added an image of a frog to his display, implying that the artist had never gone anywhere. Installation view: Russian Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2003 2003. Series of approximately 10 photographs. C-print. Dimensions variable

This project, comprising a photographic series and a dockumentary video, was inspired by a popular spa resort in southern Russia. The artist wrote a pseudo-medical text citing fictitious scientists. The film’s editing and finale follow the conventions of the popular science TV genre. Narration was provided by the celebrated Soviet TV news presenter Igor Kirillov, lending the documentary an air of familiarity and credibility. The display could also include a diorama, A Gift to

For a long time, Bratkov had wanted to create an exhibition from unrelated photographs, produced on different occasions and at different times, bringing miscellaneous visual material together in a single display. An invitation from a Belgian gallery eventually made this possible. For the artist, Belgium is associated with René Magritte, symbolism, and crime novels. Accordingly, the show included two images of fictional murders, while the rest depicted the everyday bustle. Th

This series was made in the Ukrainian city of Sharhorod, known for its historic Jewish settlement and cemetery. The artist photographed Jewish graves at sunset, when they begin to shine and create a mystical atmosphere. Installation view: Museum of Local History, Kedainiai, Lithuania, 2016. Shining. 2006. Series of 12 photographs. C-print. 52 × 40 cm

2008. Series of 7 photographs. C-print. Dimensions variable Installation view: Galería Espacio Mínimo, Madrid, Spain, 2008

In this absorbing series, the artist depicted ostensibly separate events — a religious cross procession in the provinces and an open-air rock festival — to suggest shared forms of collective spirituality. 2008. Series of 5 photographs. C-print. 103 × 280 cm

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

The rather shocking photographic series Kualnik contributed to the sense of disturbing ambivalence that Bratkov sought to capture at the time. In a shabby, tiled room with rusted pipes, bodies lie wrapped in dirty blankets. What is in reality a popular salt-bay resort near Odessa equally resembles the aftermath of violent conflict, an improvised morgue, or a similar scene.

Ukraine  is a photographic project by contemporary artist and photographer Sergey Bratkov that unfolds as a visual journey through his native country, offering a direct and at times absurdist portrait of a culture situated between tradition, Soviet legacy, and the accelerated influx of modern consumerism. Created using a panoramic camera, the series explores heterogeneous spaces - rural seaside resorts, urban industrial sites, monuments, and leisure parks - observing both lan

Bratkov’s project Chapiteau Moscow marked a high point in his decade-long exploration of public forms of social life in the burgeoning Russian capital. The artist not only revisited many of his familiar social motifs, protagonists, and contexts, but also collided them through exquisite montage, seemingly in an effort to visually and semantically amplify the absurdity of social time and space. The prosperity of the late 2000s did not bring political stability or refinement but

Created in 2015, shortly before the death of the artist’s father, My Father  is a life-size photographic portrait. The work marks a shift from the artist’s earlier engagement with public and ideological imagery toward a radically intimate register. The father is depicted seated on a bed, surrounded by utilitarian objects associated with care, fragility, and physical dependence. The frontal composition and the absence of narrative framing establish an uncompromising proximity

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

The photographs presented here were shown in a group exhibition Exile  at a municipal gallery in Berlin. Everyday objects, architectural interiors, and isolated figures are rendered with a heightened sense of tension, oscillating between documentary observation and symbolic resonance. Shown together within the context of Exile , these photographs articulate exile not only as a geographic condition, but as an existential state marked by instability, estrangement, and the erosi