Gallery “Dom Naschokina” is Russia’s first retrospective exhibition of photographs Lyalya Kuznetsova – the photographer, who has won international acclaim. Her works have been exhibited in Europe and the United States, including the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. In 1997, Kuznetsov was awarded the prize “Medal of Excellence” from the company Leica – an analogue of the “Oscar” in the world of photography, and the Grand Prix in Paris for a photo. The exhibition will feature more than 100 original works from various cycles – “Gypsies” (1982 to 1998), “Uzbekistan”, “Jews. Bukhara “and others. Some of the photos will be on display for the first time in Russia.

“Lyalya Kuznetsova pictures of what he sees. Like all artists, she does not see everything. Her eyes – the filters of her soul. And the fact that she sees them – a reality filled with the poetry of freedom, suffering and pride.

Her inner landscape, the well from which comes its vision, formed by mountains, steppes, endless horizons and different peoples – the Tartars, Cossacks, Ukrainians, Russian occupying its native Kazakhstan. She was born in 1946 in the small town of Uralsk in western Kazakhstan, near the Russian border. The daughter of a Tatar family of modest means, brought up in the Muslim tradition, she grew up to be a good homemaker, a devoted wife and loving mother. But remained in the memory of childhood memories of Roma in the yard of her aunt. She watched with genuine curiosity of the small window in the hayloft over how to come and go “these graceful tanned people.” She looked at the lights of their campfires at night and listened to their songs. She saw them painted carts on the road, but to follow them could not, because walking in the gypsy camp is not permitted.

Lialin husband died unexpectedly. She was left alone with a young daughter. What gave her the courage to pursue his old dream, this time picking up a camera, never to let her no more? Become a photographer and try to earn a living from it was awful hard. It is meant to exchange the stable existence of life in wandering and uncertainty. He must have hidden it inside some kind of force that occurs from taking vital decisions. Soon after she broke up with that of the photographer at the Kazan State Art Museum, decided to work independently.

The fate soon confirmed the correctness of its decision: his brother, she went by car to the Ural steppes. They decided to turn off the highway and came across a gypsy camp near the river. The children ran out to see them, Lala and her brother followed them to the tents. They gave the kids some souvenirs, and Lala started taking pictures of women and men sitting on the ground. Gypsies do not like to be photographed, to secure their position is not easy … But she knew that she had found what she was looking for: the people, having got her soul. Pictures of them meant to praise their way of life and awaken the artist within. At that she stood there and continued to take pictures, and Roma slowly let the young woman with the appearance, something resembling their own, in their own world, which she took off for the next 15 years.

Lalin relationship with the space through which it enables its gypsies move – that’s what’s so amazing. They are rarely found in the center of the composition but appear everywhere: in the corners at the top, at the bottom, at any distance. She has them where they exist at the moment. With it, we disclose it. Her touch seems so easy that we can forget about the determination and firmness even necessary to make such photos. Lyalya Kuznetsova Gypsy series is similar to a huge novel in which each image has its place and acquires value as the story unfolds. Dove takes to the air, the boy squatting with outstretched arms accompanies his eye flight – the very energy and enthusiasm. A man sitting on the ground, pressed to the breast feathers of a peacock with spread demonstrates this particular property as a jewel against the ramshackle rickety fences and telephone poles, leading to an unknown destination. Children play everywhere, and women always look after them. Girl in a shiny dress dominates the dirt yard, two boys lying on the ground, playing with a train in the dust. The men in this world, the owners – they sit alone or in the company of each other, if a woman next to them, it obviously belongs to them.

Over time, the photos take us from wandering gypsies living in tents in the desert, to the Roma settlements outside the big cities such as Odessa. Now there is a sense of home and confined space … It is not only the world of Gypsies. Other people appearing in the picture: Uzbeks and Tatars, actors traveling circus. They – renegades who hold – or retention destiny – are off the road, tempting millions to move to the big city. Lala also remains a favorite in the province and continues to make life in a place built by human standards.

Lyalya Kuznetsova in his works reveals the hidden power of vulnerable people. Her characters – human beings who may be close to the heart of anyone they touch us with their timelessness. Lyalya Kuznetsova – a poet who knows his craft and enriches our life as a gift of their work. “(Text Inge Morath known female photographer, whose work became the heroes of Jean Cocteau, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Eleanor Roosevelt, Marilyn Monroe, Arthur Miller, who after divorce Marilyn Monroe’s husband)

Gallery “House Naschokina” this exhibition will continue its tradition of returning to the Russian compatriots unjustly forgotten names that have won huge popularity in the West and known only to a narrow circle of specialists in their homeland. Lyalya Kuznetsova talent on the strength and expressiveness can be compared with the best names from the world of photography, such as the famous Henri Cartier-Bresson and Inge Morath.