Secret on sale City (1988)

Crystalline, Constructivist-inflected Orwachrome realism depicting on sale the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 1980s.

This is Ukrainian-born aerospace engineer-turned-photographer Boris Savalev's beautifully realized first book, the 1988 product of (Thames and Hudson director) Thomas Neurath's early Perestroika-era trip to Moscow in search of underground artists.

Not only was "The Secret City" Savalev's first book, it was the first monograph of any unsanctioned Soviet photographer to be published in the west.

As gorgeous as it is important, to be sure.


Further fashion and photobooks:
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