Kharkiv Photography in Independent Ukraine. Vita heroica vs. Vita minima.
Part 2 - Contemporary Photographers Exhibition 2
© "Shilo" group: Vladyslav Krasnoshchok, Vadym Trykoz, Sergiy Lebedynskyy. Exhibition of Kharkiv photography in The Lumiere brothers Center for Photography. The act of disobedience. The body as a protest in Kharkov photos 1970-2010s. 2013
Tatiana Pavlova, Ph.D.
This is the forth essay of the exhibition series “Kharkiv School of Photography” by Tatiana Pavlova. The Kharkiv School of Photography is not a physical school but a collective of photographers who began working together in the 1970s and continue in different formats until today.
Tatiana Pavlova.1980 – Faculty of Art History at National Academia of Fine Art and Architecture, Kiev. Ph.D. Docent of Art History chair in Kharkiv State Academy of Art and Design. Curated art exhibitions since 1988 in Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia, Germany, USA. Author of essays on Photography of Ukraine in the History of European photography in the 20th century. Author of books and articles about Ukrainian art and photography. Lectured on Ukrainian photography in Kharkiv, Kiev, Moscow, Bratislava, Poprad, Warsaw, New York.
Our time witnesses the emergence of new horizons in themes and spectra of photography. The Jewish theme, which has deep roots in Kharkiv, is among the new trends in Kharkiv photography that have developed since Ukraine obtained its independence. Grygoriy Okun pioneered it with his pilgrimage series, Jerusalem (1999). Featuring colors of the night, his works have a mystical quality to them and fit into the kind of night-dark paradigm that was formed in the Kharkiv photographic tradition during the Soviet period as an alternative to the “sunny” imperial symbolism. Photography of Eugeny Kotlyar, also characterized by the specifics of the Kharkiv school, adds to this notion his own poetics, scale, and typology of the nostalgic experience of the subject. The body of photographs presented in the project By The Rivers of Babylon can be divided into several cycles. In the center is the architectural historical landscape, landscape-vision which opens the mystery of the shtetl ("so warm, cozy, inscrutable…”) – towns, unsuccessfully absorbed by empires [1]
© Grigoriy Okun. Jerusalem.1999
Reportage photos convey impressions of everyday life of the shtetl today. We can see in these photographs both local residents and foreign pilgrims who came to the Ukrainian outback from remote corners of the world to pay homage to the graves of famous Hasidic Tzaddikim. Presence of Chagall’s spirit is evident here: he gave impetus to the understanding of the cultural message of the shtetl. But still it is reportage, and as such it features its genre attributes. Tracking the links between the life of these places today and the past history of the Jewish people from the time of the exodus from Egypt is often sprinkled with humor, such as the appearance of color applications (very typical for Kharkiv photography) in a number of shots.
© Eugeny Kotlyar. From the project "By the rivers of Babylon"
The third group presents a rare genre of reportage still life. These photos are rich in a great number of details and visual structures ("Old Attic", "Shtetl Assemblage"). Referring to desolation and oblivion of once reverently observed customs, they remind us of a forced interruption of traditions and through the associative chain take us to a shocking "still life" of pogroms [2]. This "crying on the ruins of the village" (E.Kotlyar) symbolically parallels such works as Ghetto by Abram Manevich or Peaceful city Fastow.
© Elena Polyashchenko. The beginning. 2013, сanvas, oil
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During the 2000s and 2010s, after a number of renown artists such as V. Shaposhnikov and P. Makov turned to photography, the Kharkiv School was rejuvenated by professional artists. Young artists, well-known far beyond their native Ukraine – such as members of the 2000s SOSka Lab: Kolya Ridny, Bella Logachova, Roman Minin and Elena Polyashchenko – started dabbling in photography and photo-based art. Elena Polyashchenko, who uses snapshots in her installations, continues her work with photo-realism, usually by utilizing pictures taken specifically for this purpose. This is evident in Self-Portrait with Singing Dolphin and The Iron Egg (2013).
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© Bella Logachova. 2015
Another graphic artist who often employs photography in her works – for instance, in her series The Alley of Stars or The Little Octobrist Parade (2003) and Fishmongers (2013) – is Bella Logachova, who took the photography course at the Kharkiv Academy of Arts taught by A. Suprun. Her photo collages were shown as part of the Political Concreteness project, where she was joined by Nikolai Ridny with his “glamorous” self-portraits set against the Ukrainian flag. N. Ridny’s Reality Bites (2003) continues the tradition typical of Kharkiv photography, and established by Mikhailov and Solonsky, of shocking self-portraits done in medical code, emphasized by the painful subject matter of dentistry and enhanced by sculptural elements (an enormous pair of jaws). The series of macabre self-portraits that comprise The Flies was inspired, according to the author, by the expressive imagery of E. Pavlov’s Psychosis (1983), published in 1997 in the first of only two issues of the uncensored Ukrainian contemporary-art magazine, Parta.© Sergei Kochetov. Untitled
The modern period of Kharkiv photography is also of great interest. An essential aspect here is the fact that the Kharkiv photographic legacy has not been wasted on the artists’ descendants. It is always a good sign when children follow in the steps of their fathers. The first was probably Sergei Kochetov, whose father Viktor Kochetov started involving him in his projects from an early age, often letting him color his photographs.
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© Ilya Pavlov. The series From the Navel. 2005
Introducing photography into his poster graphics, Ilya Pavlov – who holds a PhD in Photography – created a number of strictly photographic projects. One of these, My You (2002), takes the form of a book created from black-and-white pictures of Pavlov Sr. interrupted by Pavlov Jr.’s corporal photogramme, where pink flesh clashes with the metallic glow of photographic silver, sublimating the painful process of individualization and breaking free from parental clutches. The series At the Belly Level (2005), utilized a special way of taking pictures, reminiscent of the secrecy prevalent during the underground phase of Kharkiv photography, when artists would hold their cameras at stomach level to take pictures inconspicuously.
© Sasha Maslov. The Last of the Mohicans. 2014
Meanwhile, Sasha Maslov became a professional photographer. He continued working in the vein pioneered by his father, Guennadi Maslov: a reflection on ways of uniting polar opposites and cultures, adding a social aspect by examining the common search for a compromise. Maslov Jr. was an early dabbler in photographic portraits. At first they were mere staffage in his pictures, but over time he began emphasizing seemingly random city dwellers caught on film. A lonely café customer absorbed in a newspaper crossword puzzle is no longer just staffage – he is a human being, with his own destiny and his own world that cannot be easily dismissed. The photographer manages to avoid all the usual clichés typical of his subject matter (the common man or the renegade): while he could have been reduced to a mere symbol of loneliness, with his stereotypical newspaper loyalty, anachronistic in light of the open laptops present on the other tables of the image, Maslov Jr. adeptly circumvents the formal aspect of the character’s presence in the picture. Maslov’s most famous work is his series of veterans’ pictures taken over a five-year period in twenty different countries.
© Sasha Maslov. Sid Kenrick Warwick,
England (from the series “Veterans”)
Maslov’s most famous work is his series of veterans’ pictures taken over a five-year period in twenty different countries. Made up of various “invasions” into the privacy of Ukrainian, American, Japanese, Austrian, Russian, and Polish homes, Maslov received a grant that enabled him to travel around the world and capture the collective portrait of this army. By replacing life’s colors and creating this quasi-aesthetic, the photographer adopts an aggressive stance, reminding us what war is all about. He invades these homes just like war invades the privacy of a home, a country, or a region. Maslov combined the Kharkiv school of photography – with its courageous view of gritty, unembellished reality, its knack of finding joy of life in the tattered quilt of poverty, among gaudy labels that try in vain to hide loss and desolation – and the European approach. The deliberate framing and the solemn representation are reminiscent of portraits by Dutch photographer Bert Teunissen, whose project Domestic Landscapes: A Portrait of Europeans at Home (2007) depicts traditional European pre-war homes with their atmosphere and smells; he said he did it to preserve “this view of life and how to live it” [3].
© Boba group. From Furtiture from Gadyach. 2012
The strongest ties with the Vremya group, and the Kharkiv School in general, can be found in the oeuvre of the Shilo and Boba groups. The artists declare and demonstrate continuity, especially with the work of Boris Mikhailov, Eugeny Pavlov, and Juri Rupin. Vasilisa Nezabarom and Yulia Drozdek used Mikhailov's nickname “Bob” for their group's name. The Boba group is active in the genre of public art, with the promptness of their responses to social, political, and cultural issues comparable to those of the Group of Immediate Reaction. The Boba group's Furniture from Gadyach is connected to Mikhailov's Women from Ukraine, Furniture from Europe, in which Mikhailov's smiling naked wife “advertized” furniture. The Boba group used the furniture they brought from a grandma's home in their shocking family portraits. The explicit and provocative publicity of bodily life connects this project to the Kharkiv School with its love for scandalous gestures. When these images were posted on Facebook, the comments were scathing.
© Julia Drozdek. From the project “Backsides”. 2015
Aggressively aimed at gender issues, Yulia Drozdek, the female side of the duo, continued in this direction with her Backsides collection – this time, though, covered in fashionable dresses.
© Elmira Sydiak
Until recently, the development of women's photography in Kharkov was not active, except for the 1990s portrait artist, Valentina Belousova. Nowadays, there are a few female photographers on Kharkiv’s artistic horizon: Elmira Sydiak, Oksana Kurchanova, and Polina Karpova (a Kharkiv photographer's daughter, too) who explore the artistic potential of fashion photography.
© Shilo’s" Finished dissertation (V.Krasnoshchok, S.Lebedynskyy V.Trykoz)
Founded in 2010 and among the leaders of contemporary photography in Kharkiv, is the group of young photographers known as “Shilo” [4]: Vladyslav Krasnoshchok, Sergiy Lebedynskyy and Vadym Trykoz (Vasilisa Nezabarom belonged to the group at the start, too). Their works range from barbaric pastiche of Mikhailov's Unfinished Dissertation and provocative UPA Hände Hoch, to Euromaidan and images from the war zone in the Donbass region.
© Vadym Trykoz. Untitled
Although maître’s photos have mostly been eliminated from the general content of the Shilo’s Finished Dissertation, these "blind spots" in places where Mikhailov's photos used to be, still remain under his patronage, and the aura of his artistic style is maintained. Hovewer, the work’s means of expression and tone of voice have changed. The colour thickness of the visual layer has increased; the book has become darker, heavier, and engorged with silver. The velvety "shagginess" of the colour texture, which became a hallmark of the three "Shilos" – Krasnoshchok, Lebedynskyy and Trykoz – contributes to that. Everything in Mikhailov's works that had a weak touch of comic demonism, clothed in delicate sfumato of underexposed photo-print, has gained strength and power, achieving the effect of a reportage from the darkest depths of Mordor in the coloristic of the post-Soviet landscape. We should take into account that the two-volume book includes such co-projects as Timoshenko's Escape, UPA Hände Hoch, and Night, as well as individual works Healing Muds by Lebedynskyy, Bolnichka by Krasnoshchok, all of which are surrounded by that documenting layer of photos in which we can see the authors and those who came into their lives.
Left to right: © Sergiy Lebedynskyy. U/t. © Sergiy Lebedynskyy. U/t. © Vladyslav Krasnoshchok. U/ t
While the Vremya group used the myth of Soviet reality in creating their art, this new generation uses the myth of Kharkiv photography and how Soviet reality is perceived through that prism. How can we classify this book by Shilo? What is its genre? We are talking about objets trouvés, about palimpsest; we recollect an adventure novel in the mood of the found manuscripts. The book rewritten by Shilo contains many references to the situation in Kharkiv. Here again, but now twenty-five years later (note Dumas's literary code), there appear the characters of the "Kharkiv School" – Malevany and Pavlov, Solonsky and Manko, Pedan and Pyatkovka, and, of course, Mikhailov, and, naturally, Krasnoshchok, Lebedynskyy and Trykoz. And all of this happens against the background of the city. Still, poetization of the fake reality of the Kharkiv Soviet landscape, largely Stalinist in its central part – ornately decorated with columns with Soviet symbols and with classical pavilions in unexpected locations – takes place under cover of the night. Nightlife and its companions – flaneurs and dogs – are the well-known helioclastic plot from the protest days of the Vremya group, with their anti-imperial symbolism. These themes accurately detect the presence of the phantom of empire on the Ukrainian horizon.
© Vladyslav Krasnoshchok. Tretyakovka (Russian State Tretyakov Gallery). 2014
The book by the Shilo group has been clearly inscribed in a socio-political context. From the battle reconstruction of the times of the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army), they got right to the Maidan, but no longer in the virtual space of the "book" – they were there in real time, side by side with Mikhailov, who also was photographing those events. The group's new book Euromaidan (2014), published by Riot Books this year after it was noticed by Gerry Badger and Martin Parr, entered the list of nominees for "The Book of the Year" festival in Kassel and the final of the contest «First Photobook Award», held by Aperture Foundation – Paris Photo [5].
© Sergiy Lebedynskyy. Euromaidan. 2014
Notes
1. Tatiana Pavlova. Crying on the ruins of the village Photoproject by E.Kotlyar By The Rivers of Babylon // http://www.ehu.lt/files/periodicals/Cait%202013.pdf
2. It is likely that Yakov Geldfeinbein wrote of such tablecloths when he described a warehouse of German military trophies: “they saw huge piles of ordered things…each marked with a special tag of an eagle, swastika and the text, ‘Property of the Reich’. In the corner, in large wicker baskets – human jaws and dental plates missing golden teeth and crowns which had been torn out, human hair and skin, all bound up, ready for shipment. I was struck by a blood-red plush Jewish tablecloth – obligatory equipment of each Jewish family before the war”. In: Yakov Geldfeinbein. The River of the Memory// http://www.belousenko.com/books/memoirs/gelfandbeyn_1.htm
3. Domestic Landscapes by Beurt Teunissen in Aperture, 2000, # 160.
4.Pavlova T. The Kharkiv Photography School.The ‘Shilo’ Group (V.Krasnoshchok, S. Lebedynskyy, V.Trykoz) in Widok. Czasopismo teorie i praktyki kultury wizualnej (Warszawa, Poland), 2014, #7: http://widok.ibl.waw.pl/index.php/one/article/view/236/422
5.The project has been featured in exhibitions at the Municipal Gallery in Kharkiv (Ukraine); "Outpost of War Correspondents", Classic Photo Gallery, Moscow (Russia); "I'm a Drop in the Ocean", Künstlerhaus, Vienna (Austria); "Hrushevskoho Street", Open Gallery Moscow (Russia); "Publish / Curate", TJ Boulting, London (United Kingdom); "An Ocean of Possibilities", Noorderlicht Photofestival, Livorden (Netherlands); "Draft", Contemporary Art Space, Batumi (Georgia).
© S.Lebedynskyy, T.Pavlova, , V.Krasnoshchok in the
Exhibition Shilo’s Finished Dissertation in Moscow (Azarnova Gallery & Projects), 2014
© T. Pavlova
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