Detective stories from the life of a museum curator. Episode two

As part of the biennale Fashion and Style in Photography – 2025 

Detective Stories from the Life of a Museum Curator

Curators: Anna Zaitseva, Maria Lavrova

Author of detective stories: Boris Misalandi

Text preparation and assistance in the investigation: Nikita Malashenko

MAMM continues the series of exhibitions ‘Detective Stories from the Life of a Museum Curator’, which reveal the ‘inside story’ of museum work.

The first part of the project introduced viewers to a fascinating exploration of photographs from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. This time we focus on images from the 1950s to early 2000s, researched by the curator Boris Misalandi. He talks about his most complex, exciting and sometimes even unfinished ‘investigations’. The exhibition presents photographs by recognised masters of Russian photography such as Vsevolod Tarasevich, Dmitry Baltermants, Yevgeny Khaldei, Alexander Slyusarev and others, as well as little-known pictures with extremely interesting stories. 

A museum curator is not only charged with preservation of the objects entrusted to him. Properly speaking, the museum life of a photograph can only begin when we place it in a historical, artistic and cultural context. Curators are charged with the painstaking assignment of collecting and interpreting information, along with other tasks. Their work is a valuable contribution to the history of art, the basis for scientific research and curatorial projects.

When photographs come to a museum, the locations, dates and circumstances of the shooting may be unknown, although in principal the events recorded seem self-evident. Establishing these facts is called attribution. But even when a picture arrives at the museum with a detailed description, the curator faces many tasks. Every detail needs to be double-checked, every connection documented, and additional information must be collected to help the modern viewer fully understand the history of subjects and events captured in the frame. 

Museum visitors usually see only the results of curatorial research: the signatures for exhibits, booklets, explanatory texts… But now, at this exhibition, Boris Misalandi reveals the secrets of the museum’s scientific life: as an experienced ‘detective’, he reconstructs the path from riddles to solutions, guiding the visitors on their way. He shows what studying photographs really entails, and how they are attributed. 

Any detail, even the most insignificant, can help in this research – a tobacco company logo, a barely noticeable vehicle in the background, the sign outside a florist’s… Of particular value are those ‘clues’ that require not only vigilance, but also specialised knowledge. For example, according to the unique ochre stripe on the façade, found on only six Moscow high-rise buildings, the curator managed to accurately determine the location of the camera shoot; knowledge of how Moscow metro plans changed helped to establish the year when a picture was taken; and careful study of a car chassis and body (as it turned out, there were only two automobiles with such a body in the entire USSR!) proved invaluable in determining the photo’s location. Just by walking around the city the curator may stumble upon the answers required. This gives a spark of magic to museum work.