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"Talnakh Will Be!" (1960s) by Aleksander Ishin documents the early construction of Talnakh, a mining town founded in 1960 following the discovery of nickel deposits in Siberia. Ishin visited Norilsk in 1965, and the work comes directly from that experience. The composition packs in bulldozers, cranes, and rising structures alongside two propaganda slogans: "Geologists! Talnakh! Multiply the riches of the motherland!" and "On the construction site of Talnakh, increase the pace!" Text and image are not separated — the slogans run through the composition as visual elements, part of the same structure as the machinery and buildings.
The black and white geometry is rooted in Constructivism. Machines and structures are simplified almost to abstraction, reduced to strong verticals and diagonals that push upward through the frame. The effect is movement and accumulation — a town being forced into existence from frozen ground. What makes the work interesting is the gap between the optimism of the slogans and the conditions they describe. Talnakh was being built in Siberia in the 1960s. The title is a statement of will as much as fact.
Ishin graduated from the Surikov State Art Institute in 1966. He was named Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation in 2000 and People's Artist in 2011. His work is held in the State Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art in Tsaritsyno, and the Marc Chagall Museum in Vitebsk.