The Museum of Russian Art
located in Jersey City, New Jersey

Will hold a memorial exhibition to mark
the 10th anniversary of tragedy of 9/11

The opening reception:
September 11th
3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

We would like to welcome you for an afternoon of remembrance to honor the victims and to celebrate the prevailing spirit of rebirth and reconstruction of the beautiful skyline of New York City.

The exhibition is on view from
September 7th – 14th

Open: Wednesdays through Sundays: 3pm – 8pm.
The Museum is closed Monday and Tuesday.

THE EXHIBITING ARTISTS: Gulnara Samoilova, Lioudmila Koudinova, TatianaTretyakova, Stas Namin, Alexander Movshovich, Grigory Gurevich and Mikhail Avanesov.

For more information contact the MoRA museum at museumora@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/MoRAmuseum

Expert from the article Iconic 9-11 images: With cameras as buffers, photographers capture history
by Allen G. Breed, from The Associated Press, published August 4th 2011

Gulnara Samoilova’s shift in the AP photo library didn’t start until noon, and she normally slept late. But this day the wail of sirens woke her. “It just went on and on and on,” recalls Samoilova, a native of the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan. She turned on the TV and was watching at 9:03, when the second plane struck. Samoilova’s apartment was just four blocks from the World Trade Center. She grabbed her camera and a handful of film, and headed into the street. Entering the south tower, she quickly decided the scene was too chaotic to shoot, and retreated.
Back outside, she was standing right beneath the south tower, its smoking bulk filling her 85 mm lens. She saw the tower begin to crumble and got off one more shot before someone nearby screamed, “RUN!” The force of the collapse “was like a mini-earthquake,” knocking her off her feet.

Gulnara Samoilova was born in Ufa, Russia, the capital city of Bashkortostan. She has a degree in photography from Moscow Politechnic College, and also earned a certificate from the International Center of Photography (ICP) after coming to United States in 1992. With almost 30 years of professional experience rooted in photojournalism and documentary photography, Gulnara’s work also includes A-list celebrities, fashion and fine art. She was an Associated Press staffer for nine years before launching a successful wedding photography studio in New York City. She specializes in multi-cultural and destination weddings. She also teaches photojournalism and business at private workshops. On the morning of the September 11 attacks, Gulnara woke up to the sound of sirens outside her Gold St. apartment about four blocks from the World Trade Center. She immediately grabbed her film cameras and started photographing as she made her way to the towers, while virtually everyone else walked the opposite way. Like many photographers, she narrowly escaped injury in the collapse and dust storm of the north tower. Her iconic photographs from that day were widely published and exhibited around the world. Among the many awards she received was a first prize in World Press Photo, and Photographer of The Year in Russia’s InterPhoto contest. Gulnara currently lives with two adopted cats, Moosya and Zippy, on the Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Tatiana Tretyakova is a painter and a photographer from Moscow, Russia. A Pediatric Neurologist by training, she always loved to draw and take photographs as a hobby. With time, her passion for painting and photography grew into her second career. After she stopped practicing medicine ten years ago, she attended watercolor painting classes at the Natalia Buccury private Art School for a year, followed by another 3 years of formal art education at the Watercolor’s School of Sergey Andriyaka and Academy of Photography in Moscow.Since 2003, she has participated in various exhibitions in Russia, her primary focus was watercolor painting and since 2005, she has been exhibiting as a photographer. After moving into Connecticut in 2007, her main focus has been abstractions with surrealistic accents which she calls “Glass in Motion”. She uses mixed digital techniques – a merger of drawing and photography of stained glass.Her art has evolved over the years; she has experimented with multiple media: Metal Photo Paper, Canvas, Plexiglas and Aluminum. Her experimental journey has leaded her to using new technologies, which provide glossy shine and longevity to my artwork.

Stas Namin is not only a famous contemporary Russian composer, songwriter, rock band leader but also a recognized photographer and artist whose work captures the essence of Russia’s cultural and political evolution, Namin in 1998 exhibited more than 400 original photographs in Moscow’s Central Exhibition Hall, Manezh.n addition to his visual reflections on Russia, the exhibit included unique art photos from around the world, including images of Easter Island, Africa and Cuba. A year later his photography was exhibited at the Central Art Gallery of Moscow, followed in 2001 by an exhibition of his work at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, which published a catalog of Namin’s oeuvre and officially recognized him by including a number of his works into the museum’s permanent collection.

Mikhail Avanesov joined the Art Photography Club in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1970 and began successfully exhibiting in city galleries while working as an on-site social, editorial, industrial, and commercial photographer. Mikhail Avanesov’s passion for photography spans over forty years, beginning in his school days in the Azerbaijan during the 60-s. His published photographs appeared in the premier photography magazine of that period, Sovetskoe Photo (Soviet Photo) as well as in other publications. The transition to the United States in 1990 fueled the artist with new source of inspiration. During his work as a freelance photographer, Avanesov focuses on portraits, street photography, as well as landscapes and still life, increasingly employing digital media while refining his working methods and influences. In the US he has been published in the US International Library of Photography’s Anthologies: America at the Millennium (Best Photo of the 20-th Century) and Cherished Moments in Time. “Whenever I take a picture, the feeling I am after is to re-create the moment in its sheer complexity and beauty” said Mikhail Avanesov in one of his publications. The imaginative appreciation of reality continues to be the driving force behind the artist’s work, enabling him to capture with relaxed casual radiance the feeling nature of the unintended moments and transformations of the world.

Lioudmila Koudinova is a photographer living in New York City. She had an extensive career in photojournalism in the Saint Petersburg, former Soviet Union, where she worked as a staff photographer for The Art of Leningrad Magazine. In 1989 Lioudmila came to New York on a schooner Te Vega as a part of International Cross-Atlantic Soviet-American Sail crew. During her trip around America, she was invited to study in The Maine Photographic Workshops with sponsorship from Kodak. After completing the study in 1991 Lioudmila moved to New York, where she continued working with American publications as The New York Post, The New York Times, The New York Magazine, The Village Voice, and later as an event and wedding photographer.

“That was a nice sunny morning on September 11th., 2001. I went to my regular job at Art Department of The New York Times newspaper. All changed in minutes with airplane crashing into World Trade Center. The Picture desk of The Photo Department needed immediate help. Many editors, reporters, photographers, administration were working there together preparing news for next day September 12th issue. I spent all day working at the Picture Desk without any chance to go outside. My pictures of World Trade Center crash were taken around the city days after September 11th.” Lioudmila’s images are published and exhibited Internationally.