Vladimir Kupriyanov (1954-2011) – one of the pioneers of the independent art scene in the 1980-1990s, his individual artistic method was formed in the circle of D. Prigov, A. Monastyrsky, R. Lebedev and others. Vladimir Kupriyanov has developed a completely new approach to photography and its representation. Rejecting the idea of photography as an analogue of the painting’s plane, he created photographic sculptures and objects. He used various artistic effects: reflection, overexposure, dividing into parts, cropping, overlaying several layers imitating multiple exposure, etc. For Vladimir Kupriyanov, photographic film was a carrier of memory and cultural aesthetics, therefore, he often used found anonymous pictures from family archives and author photographs of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. Proposing a new conceptual method of exposing shots of the past, Vladimir Kupriyanov changes the filter of perception from retrospective, which presupposes a detached historical study, to a topical one, which expresses the idea belonging to all humankind.