Evgeny Ivanov has made a number of photographic series examining the cultural life of Siberia, including theater, literature, and ballet. His ballet series incorporates an aesthetic that echoes Edgar Degas: photographing performances from backstage, Ivanov depicts the dancers’ bodies from unexpected angles and emphasizes details that are usually hidden from the viewer. Ivanov also produced a series which depicts the life of his friend, the Novosibirsk street musician Oleg Fomin. For Ivanov, the street musician is the spirit of the city. He focuses on the bright textures of his subject, Fomin’s home, and his relationship to the space around him. Fomin died soon after the initial project was completed, and Ivanov supplemented the series with photographs of the musician’s empty apartment and, later, with images of the new inhabitants, demonstrating how quickly the memory and physical traces of a person vanish and, along with them, the “spirit of the city.”

Evgeny Ivanov (b. 1958, Novosibirsk, Russia) lives and works in Novosibirsk. He has worked as a professional photographer since 1977, including as the official photographer of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater since 1987. In 1991, he graduated from Leningrad Regional College of Culture. In 1999, he joined the Russian Union of Photo Artists and is currently Chair of the Novosibirsk Branch. He also teaches photography and curates photo exhibitions. Solo exhibitions include: Panoramas of the Private Lives of World War II Veterans, RussenKo Festival, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre (2012); Veterans, House on the Embankment, Moscow (2012); Selected Works, Novosibirsk State Museum of Local History, Novosibirsk (2003); and Novosibirsk: City and People, Soros Foundation, Novosibirsk (1998). Group exhibitions include: Heaven and Hell in Photography, National Center for Contemporary Arts, Novosibirsk (2016); United States of Siberia, Perm Museum of Contemporary Art, Perm and touring (2012–2013); and Look! How We Made Art in the 2000s, Novosibirsk State Drama Theater and touring (2009–2012). Ivanov has been awarded at numerous competitions, including Press Photo Russia (2004, 2005) and the gold medal at the Nizhny Novgorod International Photography Festival (Russia, 2004).