The winners of UP23 contest exhibited at MUSEC Lugano

Unpublished Photo (UP) is promoted by the Fondazione culture e musei and by MUSEC Lugano. Originally conceived by the Milanese gallery 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS, the project involves a competition that since 2018 has drawn young artists under 30 from around the world. In 2020 MUSEC decided to consolidate the initiative by providing it with an institutional framework and a perspective for medium-to-long-term development, aimed at indicating the main international trends in young art photography. One edition after another, MUSEC has also built up an archive of contemporary photography, thus enriching its own art photography collections that today include over 40,000 works, from the nineteenth century up to our own day and age.

The 2023 edition of UP was aimed at photographers between the ages of 18 and 30, who were invited at the beginning of the year to submit a portfolio of 10 images consistent with each other in style and content. During its opening month, the contest saw over two hundred photographers from thirty-five countries around the world participate, with strong entries from Italy, Bangladesh, India, and Russia. The four winners were selected by an international jury pre-chaired by Italian photographer Roberto Polillo, which met in Venice at the head- quarters of the Istituto veneto di Arte Scienze e Lettere, a partner in the project. The awarded portfolios touch on important themes such as memory and history, identity and representation, the juxtaposition between vi-vent being and automaton, and the creation and search for fantastic worlds.

The first prize, worth CHF 2,000, went to Andrey Podlednev (Russia) and the second prize of CHF 1,500 to Madeleine Brunn-meier (Germany). The third and fourth prizes were awarded respectively to Aleksandr Lialiushkin (Russia) and W.VV.VV (Singapore), who receive CHF 1,000 each. The special prize awarded by the De Pietri Artphilein Foundation in Lugano went to Madeleine Brunnmeier and consists of the publication of a prestigious art book in a bilingual, English and German edition (Artphilien Editions). The exhibition set up in Spazio Maraini at Villa Malpensata in Lu-gano, features 24 large-format photographic prints, six for each of the winners. The exhibition is also accompanied by a bilingual (in Italian and English) catalog published by Fondazione culture e musei editions, which contains all ten photographs in each portfolio.


FIRST PRIZE: Andrey Podlednev - Living Legends
Andrey Podlednev was born in Khabarovsk (Eastern Russia) in 2004 and in 2015 moved to St. Petersburg. He began taking pictures when he was a young boy, using old equipment of Soviet production, and his passion grew when his parents gave him a Canon 2000. Since then, photography has become his inseparable companion, an extension of his eye. In 2022, thanks to his friend, the photographer Nikolay Shchegolev, he discovered the world of steam trains, which are still running along the his- torical railway lines. Thus was born the project Living Legends. Some of the photographs were taken in the locomotive repair depot in St. Petersburg, others in Peterhof and along the railway line to Belarus. Podlednev captures with lyricism the majesty of the steam locomotive and pays tribute to the nameless engine drivers and workers he has met during his travels, an experience that has touched this young photographer’s soul. They are the «living legends» that will become the title of the series: the guardians of metal relics from the past, smothered in soot.


SECOND PRIZE: Madeleine Brunnmeier - Gestalten
Madeleine Brunnmeier was born in 1995 in Southern Germany. Her cre- ative vein was already clear to see in the drawings she made as a child. As a teenager she began experimenting with photography, using a digital device, discovering a remarkable, almost magical connection with the visual world. Her curiosity in seeking new ways to express emotions was initially realized via the self-portrait. In 2017 she moved to Berlin to study art and to try out other forms of expression, but photography remained her intimate refuge.
The protagonists in the portfolio Gestalten (2020-2023) are men and women of all ages, portrayed in their homes wearing their entire wardrobe. Clothing thus loses its primary function and becomes sculptural material, capable of revealing the profound identity of each of the individuals. Brunnmeier, who was to some extent inspired by the imposing costumes of ancient European folklore used in the traditional carnivals, chose to work with an analog technique here: a return to the roots of the photographic medium and a stimulating creative challenge.


THIRD PRIZE: Aleksandr Lialiushkin – Breakdowns
Aleksandr Lialiushkin (1993) began practicing photography while studying journalism in Nižnij Novgorod, and in 2016 he earned a degree in contemporary art in Saint Petersburg. Since then he has cultivated research that combines photography, his main means of expression, and the performing arts. In 2022 he left Russia and moved to Germany. It was in Germany that the artist completed the project Breakdowns, which he began in 2016 in Russia and then interrupted. By drawing parallels between the marionette and the human being, the photographer seeks a metaphorical connection between master and slave, between the living and the artificial, between those who feel pain and those who lack emotions. Two figures in a neutral space copy each other, seeking to become one single thing, in order to stop being reborn over and over again. The marionette, which is non-living, does so easily, feeling nothing. The human being expresses his feelings in the pain caused by the unnatural poses, pain that is not reflected in his face, however, thereby increasing the alienating nature of the series.


FOURTH PRIZE: W.VV.VV - Psytopia
Born in 1995, the artist and designer of augmented reality W.VV.VV have chosen to hide their own identity and express themselves in images that translate a deep fascination with cyberpunk culture. For Psytopia, between 2019 and 2023 the artist wandered for countless nights and dawns along the streets of different cities in Japan, including Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Sapporo, and Hiroshima. Their attention is focused on the urban scenes that often go unnoticed, and on the places where people seldom go. The elaboration of the images and the special use of colours evoke a sense of solitude and desolation, which leave the hustle and bustle of crowded cities in the background. Each image digs deep into a psychological dimension, transfiguring ordinary landscapes into an ultra- terrestrial hallucination. The project intends to affirm the power of evoking emotions and of inspiring introspection, reflecting the artist’s personal journey through the labyrinth of their psyche.