Photo Exhibition Review: XXI. My Pacific

There are shows and exhibitions. Some of them even after closing are still actively discussed by the photographic community. That’s the sign of the Event. Such an event this fall was the exhibition “XXI. My Pacific Ocean at the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val. The project was conceived and implemented by Kirill Vasilenko and Anastasia Davydova, curators of “FotoFond – Territory of Photography” RIA Novosti group

1. Sergey Maksimishin. Indonesia

FotoFond – the Territory of Photography” project has brought together the “golden” list of participants, including the only American woman who was awarded the Golden Eye the highest prize of the World Press Photo the Eugene Smith Grant winner one of the most prestigious photography grants in the world the only American photographer from the famous French agency Magnum Photos laureates of American and international photo contests, whose works are kept in major American and foreign museum collections, galleries and private collections and are published in leading international publications. Everyone is different, each with his or her own vision, handwriting and methods. Hence the diversity of the works at the exhibition: black and white and color, made with digital and film cameras, wide and long lenses and monocular, they show the main directions of contemporary photography.

The project fit perfectly into the challenging space of the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val and made a strong impression in terms of architecture, lighting, and modern presentation. In addition to the well-printed works, an autonomous presentation by each author, you could see a slide show about the country in digital frames and a separate, well-done multimedia project that gave an idea of the grand plan of its organizers.

Andrei Bezukladnikov, founder and head of the online portal Photographer:

– Enjoyed the way the complex space was mastered. Sometimes you go to an exhibition and walk as if along a long fence with photos hanging monotonously, and the atmosphere is soporific. And here is life, life pulsating. Mastered the space beautifully. I was not bored at once. I experienced a state of adventure. You don’t know what’s around the corner. And every time there’s something new around the corner. There were many things that were unexpected and unusual, both in the way the works were framed, the different sizes, the way the frames and matting were highlighted, and the way they were illuminated. The exhibit looks diverse and well-balanced. Even without looking at the photos, you can take pleasure in how interesting, beautiful, and delicate they are. It’s very modern. I was wondering!

Managed to gather such a powerful crew of different photographers who make such a vivid picture, and you can see that they are not tired, that they are interested themselves, that they want to be pioneers. I think it was a very successful project. I can’t mark out anyone in particular, I first passed this exhibition as a forest, now I’m looking at the trees. From what I noticed, I liked Sergey Trapezin, who made monocle work. A monocle is trivial, and he didn’t make it trivial. His work is like a painting that makes you want to meditate. Pinchasov, as always, thrilled me. I really liked Natasha Berkutova’s work about Papuans. I liked Kozyrev very much – such a simple picture, the way I like it. It’s so minimalist and yet it says it all. Clean, transparent, like the air you breathe in and out

Alexey Myakishev, project participant:

– I got Taiwan. It was my first time in Asia. It’s like going to another planet. It’s all the same, but it’s different. Another culture, another mentality, other colors, another state. I went home and for a week could not understand what reality I was in. I shot some of the work with a digital camera and with black and white film. I got about 30 rolls of film and over 5000 color images. I turned in all the material. Made my selections, I got about 200 in color and about 70 in black and white. Then the curators looked and made their selections: for the website some, for the slideshow some, for multimedia some..

Taiwan is an island with its own political system. Most of all remember the people, how their life, their mentality. The subway was amazing. I, not knowing hieroglyphics, easily navigated there. The Oriental market is amazing, it is a blast: a lot of small shops where you can try everything, unusual and tasty products. I was interested in the relationship between humans and the ocean. My task was to shoot people across the ocean, but I was shooting on a larger scale, trying to convey my feelings about the place, the country.

Everything is different there, another civilization. For me it was a good, rewarding experience. A large-scale project. Such projects are extremely necessary. They stimulate a photographer to go to another country, to make a story, to convey his feelings – this is always a stimulus to further growth and development.

Dmitry Morgulis, project participant:

– I got New Zealand, the most distant point of the project. The New Zealanders are very interesting people, very polite, extremely excited about life. They don’t look like Americans. I drove in a state of fear because the task was difficult. Very long flight with two connections. It was hard to join in right away: the time difference, the other climate – the antipode of ours, they have winter, we have summer. Am I satisfied with the selection? Yes, although I would have submitted other jobs. For example, for me it was unexpected that they chose landscape work. But on the whole, I’m satisfied with the selection and the way it’s presented to the public. I hope that the curators of the project will cooperate with us and give us the opportunity to show the exhibition in other cities. For example, I would have been happy for it to take place in Khabarovsk. It’s my first big photo project in America. There will probably be a second one and a third one after that. But we were the first. We were the first!

Mikhail Dashevsky, photographer, project participant:

– I was in China, in Shanghai. Imagine: you came to New York from another country, you’ve never been here and you don’t understand the American language – and you’ll understand my feelings. The best thing you could do is go and shoot the famous “New York” sights. God have mercy on me. I wanted to take mood pictures. I took them off. I had an interpreter for three days, then I worked by myself.

How I prepared for the trip? Bought a map and a guidebook. I asked my translator Sasha to show me the Shanghai slums and he didn’t object. He took me to the slums, I wandered around. There were only two “can’t shoots” on the whole trip. I think it’s negligible for a communist country. It’s 38 degrees and I’m freely filming on the streets of Shanghai. Why didn’t you film the Pacific Ocean?? You had to go there, I thought Shanghai was the best place I could shoot, so I didn’t bother. Think about it: what can I, a city person, shoot on the coast?? One hundred and thirty-fifth net as it is darned and thrown into the ocean?

Igor Gavrilov, Head of American Photography at EAST NEWS:

– It is strange that of the 21 authors none of them has a good picture of the ocean. And the ocean is the most powerful creature that lives on our planet. The ocean is where we came from and where we will go. Not a single author bothered to make sense of the ocean..

Victoria Ivleva, project participant, photojournalist:

– The nice thing about this project is that it turned out exactly as it was conceived. Everything that the curators had in mind, they managed to implement. It doesn’t always happen with projects. I personally visited Brunei, a very closed country, and that in itself was interesting. Brunei turned out to be not a very photographic place, so there was an additional professional challenge. The main difficulty, it seems to me, arose at the stage of selecting pictures, because most of us are used to doing the selection together with the curator, while FOTOFOND took everything into its own hands and we were deprived of this pleasure. Now we are eagerly awaiting the release of the “XXI” album. My Pacific” with our photos.

Vladimir Bogdanov, photojournalist:

– Beautiful exhibition. Good topic. But it is rather a documentary exhibition, and it is positioned as an exhibition of artistic photography. I have an internal protest against this.

Kirill Vasilenko and Anastasia Davydova authors of the original idea, curators of the project :

– What criteria did you use to select authors for the project?

– We were one of the main organizers of the First International Portfolio Review for American Photographers, which took place in New York in August-September 2011. Interaction with a photographer, as you know, at the portfolio review is just beginning, it’s such a zero mark at the start, which should certainly lead to something in case you meet interesting authors. We met. Some of them we really wanted to show. Some of them, as we have realized already as a result of the created project, were a discovery not only for our spectators but also for the sophisticated and professional people.

So, we wanted to unite photographers in one project. That’s why more than half of the photographers in the expedition are participants of the New York International Portfolio Review. We made the acquaintance of Ludmila Ketzlakh during the portfolio at Houston’s Photofest 2012 and invited her to the project as well. In our final list from which we chose the participants, there were either 87 or 89 authors. Various. Absolutely. Consciously and intentionally, we originally wanted the project to bring together reporters, documentarians, and artists whose names are associated with the art direction in photography. We wanted to gather Authors with a capital letter, capable of photographically comprehending the nature, the essence, the context of the space they will find themselves in mostly for the first time , and pulling out what caught their fancy through the lens. Hence the “MY” in the title of the project, a key and defining word. It was important for us to bring together those authors who do not belong to one or another photographic clan, so that our example of 21 authors would crystallize a certain cross-section of contemporary American photography, with all its ambiguity for example, knowledge and sensitivity to world trends in some cases and total ignorance of the world context in others, the ability to think and work on projects and no understanding of what to do with one’s own material , which was also predictable to us from the start.

– How was the country chosen for each author??

– The countries were assigned to the authors as a result of a draw, which took place on June 5, 2012 at RIA Novosti International Multimedia Press Center: from an imaginary Pacific Ocean aquarium photographers drew bottles in which there were scrolls indicating the country to which the photographer would go for the week.

– Did you discuss with the authors what you wanted to get as a result, did you give them any settings, recommendations, advice, wishes, or were they really free to choose topics, techniques and shooting techniques?

– Discussed the unconventional author’s view in a situation when even a professional photographer is influenced by tourist beauties and views, the author’s view which reveals a superficial impression and reaches much deeper than the standard tourist picture through the lens. We were asked not to shoot anything resembling a Bounty commercial. In their choice of themes, techniques and shooting techniques – yes, the authors were indeed free. Because we invited experienced authors who are able to frame their story-idea from reality and make photographic sense of what they see.

– Did you offer the authors to make a pre-selection and did you take their opinions into consideration when putting together the exhibition although I doubt everyone understands that an exhibition of so many and so different authors is not equal to a personal exhibition for each of them ?

– Yes, we proposed and considered proposals. But that’s not synonymous with “Considered means included in the exhibition.”. This is not done anywhere else in the professional world in projects like this. Especially in the collective, where a project approach is needed, forming a coherent picture and exposition, where pulling a blanket over your subjective and sometimes conservative perception of yourself is out of the question. Besides, not all photographers are able and willing to think project-wise. Someone was able to suggest a project. And in this case, we made a selection, either completely or partially based on the selection proposed by the author. Someone suggested what is called a reasoned position of the author, based on which we made certain decisions. And there was also what is called the vocabulary of caprice: “I don’t like it!”. That’s it – that’s it, the professional position has been expressed. For us, the “argument” is weak, indicating a lack of culture of professional interaction. As for promises that the selection of authors – if it is offered at all – will coincide with the exhibition selection, no one has given anyone, either in writing or orally.

– How would you rate the result: was it possible to realize everything you had planned, what were the difficulties in creating an exposure??

– There were no difficulties. It was important to create a single space, harmoniously breathing and alive. A couple dozen sleepless nights and it seems to have worked. Seriously, it’s more about the ambiguity and unevenness of the resulting material, as we mentioned above: the language of progressive world photography in one case and, in general, a certain “simplicity” of photographic expression that has lost its force and relevance in another. But it was all decided during the creation of the exposition.

– Please note the work of those who helped you to create a complex, multi-layered and modern exposition.

– Above the project as a whole the expedition, the selection of material, production and post-production, photo exhibition in Vladivostok, photomusic performance in Vladivostok, an exhibition in the Tretyakov Gallery, a book, a film about the Vladivostok photomusic performance, which will appear in early December worked a serious team of people, large professionals – about 80 people. For example, the logo of the project was designed by Sergey Mirosh Miroshnichenko , an artist, sculptor, professor of the Royal Academy of Arts.

As for the Tretyakov Gallery exhibition design, space architecture, multimedia elements, the concept of designing the works, forming the authors’ blocks , it was created by Anastasia Davydova and Kirill Vasilenko with the participation of their colleagues from the “FotoFond – Territory of Photography” project.

– Will you continue such large-scale thematic projects in the future?? Share your immediate plans, please.

– The easiest thing to say would be: Of course, we plan to continue! But THOSE projects are too many and very costly at all stages – from development to implementation. So it would be more accurate to say that we have a new idea that we’ve been nurturing for months. This idea has been formed and thought out, its scale is comparable to “My Pacific Ocean”, it involves dozens of photographers. And not only. Of course, we would love to do more projects of this kind, but… let’s not think too much, and refrain from “talking too much”. We want to do. It is possible that we will suggest a new format because it works.

At the stage of creating the photomusic show various “well-wishers” – colleagues from the photographic community told us and not us that it was nonsense, that nobody and never would come to see a photograph in the square, where usually various pop-stars give performances for the people. As a result, on the shore of the Amur Bay in Sportivnaya Naberezhnaya in Vladivostok during this very presentation the works of photographers – participants of the project were standing and watched for 1.5 hours by more than 5000 people. In other words, the photo exhibition, presented in its original format, was seen in an hour and a half by 5,000 people, many of whom then said that it was “an event for thinking people. We are satisfied with the result. And the impressions of viewers who saw our exhibition in the Tretyakov Gallery. It was interesting for us to invite so different authors, whom we would hardly ever gather in one project and show their works to the audience. We succeeded!

Questions by Natalia Udartseva.

There are exhibitions and shows. Some of them are still actively discussed by the photographic community after the closure. This is a sign of the Event. Such event of this autumn was the exhibition “XXI”. My Pacific Ocean at the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val. The project was conceived and implemented by curators of “FotoFond – Territory of Photography” RIA Novosti group Kirill Vasilenko and Anastasia Davydova

ON PHOTO:

2. Artem Zhitenev. Korea

3. Andrey Shapran. Singapore

4. Mikhail Dashevsky. China

5. Vladimir Semin. Peru

6. Victoria Ivleva. Brunei Darussalam

7. Igor Mikhalev. Vietnam

8. Yury Kozyrev. America, Kamchatka, 2012

9. Georgy Pinkhassov. Mexico

10. Emil Gataullin. Australia

11. Alexei Myakishev. Chinese Taipei

12. Sergey Trapezin. Malaysia