Igor Kalashnikov: Painting Is Dead: How the Great Fear of the 19th Century Set Art Free | Lecture.

On 29 September 2026, as part of the international Archive of Light festival, Belarusian photographer and lecturer Igor Kalashnikov will present a lecture entitled Painting Is Dead: How the Great Fear of the 19th Century Set Art Free.

The lecture explores a pivotal moment in the relationship between photography and the visual arts: the emergence of photography and the profound changes it brought to 19th-century artistic culture.

In 1839, following the public introduction of the first photographic processes, artists were confronted with a new technology capable of recording the appearance of people and the world around them with unprecedented speed and accuracy. Photography gradually took on a role that had long been associated with painting: providing a faithful visual record of reality.

This gave rise to the idea that the new technical medium and traditional art were in competition with one another. Yet photography did not bring about the end of painting. On the contrary, as painting was freed from the need to reproduce the visible world as accurately as possible, artists began to explore new artistic goals and forms of expression — from Impressionism and Expressionism to the many forms of abstract art that followed.

The lecture asks how photography changed our understanding of the artistic image. What happened to painting once a technological means of accurately recording reality became available? Which of painting’s traditional tasks lost their central importance? And how did the emergence of photography shape the subsequent development of modern art?

The lecture will examine the emergence of photography and its impact on 19th-century artistic culture, the development of photographic technologies and the changing role of painting, the transformation of ideas about the artistic image, and the evolving relationship between photography and painting. Particular attention will be given to Impressionism, Expressionism and abstraction as part of the broader transformation of art following the emergence of photography.

Igor Kalashnikov is a Belarusian photographer, historian, curator and lecturer. He is Chair of the Photography Section of the Belarusian Union of Designers and a member of the Belarusian Association of Photographers and the Minsk People’s Photo Club. He graduated with honors from P. M. Masherov Vitebsk State University and holds a Master’s degree in World History. He is the author and lecturer of educational programs devoted to the history and theory of photography and its artistic and technological transformations.

Event Information
29 September 2026 |17:30
University of Culture Art Gallery
1 Oktyabrskaya Square, Palace of the Republic, Minsk, Belarus

Admission: Free

Festival organizer: Belarusian Association of Photographers
Official website: photounion.by

Media and general inquiries
Gallery: +375 (17) 259-46-12
Email: art.gallery.uk@yandex.by