Kunststück

The Kunststück explores inner displacement caused by subtle shifts in our perception of the everyday cityscape. The fake faсade is a visual symptom of the post-truth era, where reality and fabrication obscure one another

The Kunststück project began in 2017, when I first consciously paid attention to the phenomenon of the fake faсade. It was located in an open space, free from dense development, and covered a monumental building. The urban landscape appeared visually and emotionally distorted, almost surreal. This dissonance became the starting point for a long-term investigation.
The project evolved from a desire to capture the inner displacement that arises when one’s perception of the everyday cityscape is subtly altered. In this context, the fake facade is not merely a construction element but a visual symptom of the post-truth era — an era in which the real and the constructed constantly replace and obscure each other.
Over the past decades, printed facades — hiding construction sites or the decaying state of buildings — have become a normalized part of the urban landscape in many Russian cities. These large-format images of architecture, gaining both volume and spatial presence, have come to function as architectural forms in their own right.
What lies behind these printed images remains unknown: a listed building awaiting restoration, a private residence in a state of collapse, or simply emptiness. The façade is anonymous, ahistorical. Its connection to the original structure is purely formal, while the image itself is always a simplified and distorted version. It becomes a sign that both conceals and points to the absence of the original.
In the post-2022 political climate, the fake façade in Russia has shifted from an architectural metaphor to a psychological image — one of distancing, of choosing not to see what is happening. The illusion becomes a convenient form of survival, a voluntary veil over rupture or devastation.
My photographic approach is intentionally hybrid. I combine analog photography with digital post-production, creating a visual language that blurs documentary and constructed realities. The slight artificiality introduced in editing acts as a visual echo of the deception embedded in the faсades themselves.
What emerges is a study of the aesthetics of concealment. The city becomes both a set and a symptom — a territory where illusion replaces truth, and the banner becomes the architecture of forgetting.