Aaron Kreiswirth - Untitled (Kiev, 2009)

Aaron Kreiswirth

I grew up in Canada and have lived in New York for 11 years. I have an MFA in Photography from Pratt and an MA in Media Studies from the New School. My most recent body of work is an exploration of artifice and irony in the post-Soviet public domain. I’m attracted to the fragmented and illusory language of the streets, open squares and other common spaces in cities like Odessa and Berlin that speak to their complex and conflicted pasts: a subtle pastiche of historic and contemporary architecture, monuments, advertising, signage and so on. Whether a large trompe l’oeil construction facade in Kiev or a three-dimensional cell-phone advertisement in Moscow, this type of ambiguous urban veneer is reflective of the historical tension in these physical spaces. The ‘hide-and-seek’ game of authenticity that ensues for the viewer, especially a foreigner, can be amusing and even provocative, but also deeply disquieting. I find these places often to be beautiful and yet evocative of a larger sense of loss and melancholy.