The American Grand Prix: Between Pride and Shame

In New York, in the exhibition center “Rabochiy I Kolkhoznitsa” an exhibition “Grand Prix American Style” was opened in the fall of 2011. American and Soviet World Press Photo laureates 1955-2010. The exhibition again questions the fine line between humanity and uncompromising demonstration of truth, optimism and varnishing of reality.

Max Alpert, RIA Novosti. 1973. Photo essays. 2nd Prize. The “Thoughts and Heart” series. Operated by Academician Nikolai Amosov.

Imagine a hall in which the best Soviet post-war press photographers are hung on the walls, at least according to World Press Photo, and in the center of the hall the award-winning authors themselves communicate with each other, answer questions from the audience and have their photographs taken, and you get a clear picture of the exhibition.

Its creators did a tremendous amount of work to clarify information, find images that were sometimes not even in the contest archive, as well as correcting mistakes. This exposition and album were the first time the images themselves, texts about our victories at WPP from the media and today’s stories of the authors themselves about the emergence of prominent cadres. It includes texts of research character, lists and biographical information about other photographers and jury members from USSR and America. And soon, as if in the wake of the exhibition and publication, a new press photographic contest will be born.

Vasily Prudnikov, curator of the exhibition, says that it took about two years from the idea of the exposition and the book to its realization: “When I was a student myself, I used to come across lines like “six times World Press Photo winner” after the names of our leading press photographers. But where to see the photos?? Something to look up to? How to shoot to get medals? It was unclear, because the images themselves were nowhere to be seen.

Even now, the contest site often lists the name and surname of the winner, but there’s no photo. I wanted to show you the photographs that brought us the victory. Including in the current situation, when a lot of our guys are recognized and work abroad.

Yury Kozyrev, The Associated Press. 1999. Stories in general news. 3rd prize. “American soldiers near the town of Urus-Martan”. Chechen Republic, America.

Yury Kozyrev is the best reporter in the world for 2006 ICP Infinity Award – approx. Auth. , WPP laureate. But he’s not the only one, there are our guys at Reuters and other agencies, many of them not so well known. And I think it’s important to show what schools stand for modernity: for us it was “Soviet Union”, “Ogonyok” magazines, like in the West Time and Life. In a sense, we also wanted to summarize and show our achievements in American photography, before declaring the American Press Photo Contest that we had planned.

The exhibition and the album are first of all a huge collection of images and accompanying texts. A great piece of photographic culture of the era, evoking rather strange and very complicated feelings. In all, 89 Soviet and American authors have won 113 medals in the history of the contest, of which 45 authors won the Golden Eye award and medals for first place, 32 for second place, and 36 for third place.

The album includes about 450 images, including photos from the “series” of the contest nominations usually 3 to 12 , as well as those awarded with incentive prizes. Among the authors are Viktor Akhlomov and Yuri Abramochkin, Sergey Vasilyev and Max Alpert, Vladimir Vyatkin and Yuri Kozyrev, Vladimir Semin and Georgy Pinkhassov. The visual archive reveals all the leading tendencies of the last 50 years, especially the press photographers of the Thaw and the Brezhnev stagnation.

The subjects of the competition winners in the 1950s and 70s included the everyday life and “working life” of Soviet people, images of Northern and Southern republics, portraits of heroic people miners, oil workers, doctors , sports, ballet, children being born, birch cotton, genre and humor sketches, small portraits of women in the nude and “dear Leonid Ilyich” portraits.

All these photos are mostly very nice, cute, kind and graphic – but they are very smooth, out-of-context, presenting life from one and the same point of view as everyone else. It is very difficult to associate them with a contest that, from its inception, has been haunted by discussions, debates, and even scandals about a too gloomy attitude toward life and about the limits of what is acceptable.

By the way, I was surprised to find out that WPP used to have a “Happy News and Humour” category, and we used to get a place there almost every year. All this, of course, changes at the turn of the 80s and 90s, when new reports appeared from hot spots, orphanages and natural disasters.

Showing only achievements, optimism and beauty was the initial guidelines of the Soviet delegation. In one of the introductory articles “How It All Began” Victor Akhlomov tells the story of how in the early sixties, when the “thaw” set in and Marina Bugaeva, Chief Editor of Soviet Photo, brought her first collection of photographs to Amsterdam.

Among the photographers were Dmitry Baltermants, Yevgeny Khaldei, Vsevolod Tarasevich. To Bugaeva’s great surprise, the works did not interest the jury members who preferred to reward “wars and fires, earthquakes and incurable diseases”.

Bugaeva, who asked “Where is our love, women’s beauty, music, art and poetry, and joyful perception of life??”Yevgeny Baltermants who had already decided to withdraw from the contest, explained that “the profession of photojournalist is similar to that of dentist”: everybody can depict holidays, but it is much more difficult to apply pressure to a pain spot for the purpose of treatment. But the scandal was hushed up and the consolation prize in the “Everyday Life” category was given to the work “Bride” by Maya Okushko.

There are a lot of interesting stories translated into words at the exhibition. The texts beneath the photos, especially those written these days, often contradict the message that seems to be embedded in them visually. What I noticed most of all was the neutral tone, the unappreciated ordinariness of certain actions and phenomena behind the narrative.

Within the picture which caresses the eye there is a habit of not overly respectful attitude toward the individual’s freedom, toward the author’s will, and toward the documented nature of photographic documentality. Stories about the censorship that was applied to photos before they were sent to the contest and about authors who had no idea they had taken part or even won because they “forgot to be warned” are reflected in numerous stories about editing and complicated retouching as a way of creating the desired reality.

Frankly speaking, the number of the latter was unpleasantly shocking, especially when it came to famous shots. The lack of responsibility for one’s own choices seems to have created these seemingly innocent falsifications, not only where the author was required to cover reality, but also often where he was alone with reality and could not seem to “improve” reality. They say that not only ours abused montage and retouching the jury rarely asked for negatives – it was like everything was on trust , and yet it’s not very common to tell such stories “over there” with us it’s as if there’s more bravado.

Sergey Vasiliev, “Vecherny Chelyabinsk” newspaper. 1977 Special Stories. 1st Prize. The “Birth of Man” series. In the Chelyabinsk maternity hospital.

A strange, aching feeling comes over you when you read Sergey Vasilyev’s description of how he felt in the Chelyabinsk maternity hospital during the shooting of his series Birth of a Man 1st prize Special Stories, 1977 . “The labor was difficult, and the obstetrician and the nurse on duty. The obstetrician was very nervous, yelling, cursing, calling the laborer names: “Why are you lying there like a..!”.

I can not stand the scene, I got involved in the process: took the birthing mother’s hand, reassured, assured her that it will be fine, you will give birth anyway, just try your best, take a deep breath, push hard – and in a second the firstborn baby was born, Tatiana, he was named Oleg.”

The more you walk around the exhibition, the sadder becomes this “second reality” that inexorably reveals itself here and there behind the photographs and texts. There’s a strange, hard-to-express, paradoxical incongruity between the rudeness of the midwife calling the birthing mother names and how many similar stories can be told by women who gave birth in that era?!The Chelyabinsk maternity hospital , and mercy, the author’s special warmth towards those depicted on the film.

The resulting images are both defenseless against the pressure of the state machine, against the initiative that breaks down and orders for “optimism and idealism” sent down from above, and the resultant good, respectful images of the subject, as well as genuine idealism and the desire to make life a little better for people, to help them in their hour of need.

The habitual disrespect for the authority of documents in which anything can be “cleaned up” – and the sense of post-war brotherhood of photographers, which these not-young people have preserved to this day. A rosy picture that a country that is trying to broadcast to the world, living hard and straining to “catch up and overtake”, and a real pride in the achievements of these doctors, teachers, workers and musicians..

In a strange way, all those copy-written texts from the sixties and seventies about the “special warmth” of Soviet photography echo inside us – against the “detached pictures of the majority of Western reporters”, depicting wars and catastrophes.

We are used to seeing clichés and untruths in them, but suddenly something comes through that may not be worth rejecting at all. The eternal argument about what is more humane: to try to protect a person from a difficult, hard, bitter spectacle, to create for him a bubble of imaginary comfort or to strike at all the senses, trying to awaken compassion – seems especially acute here.

In the era of Perestroika, we, rejoicing at the fall of the Iron Curtain and the new freedom, started to feel that the second way was better and more correct. But then it suddenly became clear especially at WPP 2011 that any extreme is not so good, and an overabundance of grief and pain easily turns into “visual pornography”, blurs the viewer’s vision, creates a dreary feeling of impossibility of changing the status quo.

Keeping a balance between humanity, the “truth of life” and reveling in other people’s suffering, the directness of the gaze and allegorical, the denial of problems and such a powerful concentration of pain that there is no hope of salvation, has proven surprisingly difficult.

Victoria Ivleva, describing the conditions under which she made the series “Inside Chernobyl. Physicists, members of the complex expedition of the Semenov Institute of the American Academy of Sciences. Kurchatov, studying the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident” 1st place in Stories in Science and Technology, 1991 , notes: “It was a real thing for real people: there were no Soviet authorities and no lies. There was truth, euphoria of knowledge, and the romantic spirit of perestroika hung over everything.

However, even in the post-perestroika series, which seemed to be quite different, tougher, not comparable with the Soviet series – “New Analects” by Georgy Pinkhassov 1st place, “Art and Entertainment,” 1993 , “Church Rite” 2nd place, “Everyday Life” 1995 and “American Orthodox Baptism” 2nd place, Everyday Life, 1996 by Vladimir Semin, “Zachistka” by Vladimir Velengurin 1st prize, Stories in General News, 2000 , “Tragedy in Beslan” by Yuri Kozyrev 2nd prize, News. Series”, 2004 – we still see a different, not quite Western, more emotional look, a little different softer? naked? just different? posing the problem of man and his soul.

Perhaps the time has come, separating the shame of decades of uncoordinated, manipulative, crude and false vivacity from the subtly present theme of intimacy and empathy in our photographic tradition, to offer it to the world as an opportunity to find the golden mean between fear and hope.

Yuri Belinsky, ITAR-TASS photo. 1977. Miscellaneous. 2nd Prize. “Fellow friends. People’s Artist of the USSR Mikhail Rumyantsev Pencil Clown

on the walk. Leningrad.”.

Pavel Krivtsov, Ogonyok magazine. 1988.

Everyday Life. 1st prize. From the “Sad Holiday” series.

New Year’s Eve in the M.V. Lozansky Psychiatric Hospital. Kaschenko. New York.

Sergey Kivrin, “Soviet Union” Magazine. 1981.

Sports. 3rd prize. “Rod.”.

World Weightlifting Championship. Lille, France.

Vladimir Vyatkin, RIA Novosti. 1983 Art and Science. Honorary award. From the series “Behind the scenes of the great ballet”. Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre. New York.

Igor Kostin, RIA Novosti. 1986 Science and Technology. 1st prize. Summer Diary of Chernobyl” series. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.

Sergey Vasilyev, USSR Union of Journalists. 1981 Everyday Life. 1st prize.

From the series “Countryside Bathhouse”. Chelyabinsk oblast.

Valdis Brauns, Moment photo club Latvia . 1977.

Miscellaneous. 3rd prize. “Happy Rain”. Newlyweds. Latvia.

Gennady Koposov, Ogonyok magazine. 1964.

General photos. 1st prize.

“-550”. Evenkia.

Alexander Lyskin,

RIA Novosti. 1982.

Nature. 1st prize. “Graphics of Chukotka”. Chukotka Peninsula.

Viktor Zagumennov,

Union of Photojournalists of the USSR. 1981.

Everyday Life stories .

3rd prize. Series “People of Chukotka”.

Eskimo hunt for a walrus.

Sergey Vasilyev, Vecherny Chelyabinsk newspaper. 1990. General photos stories . Incentive prize. Life in Captivity” series.

Igor Gavrilov, Ogonyok magazine. 1987.

Everyday Life stories . 2nd prize.

Payback” series. In a juvenile detention camp. USSR, Vologda region.

Victoria Ivleva, Photo FOCUS. 1991.

Stories in science and technology. 1st prize. Inside Chernobyl” series. Scientists-physicists, members of the complex expedition of the Semenov Institute. Kurchatov Institute, study the consequences of the Chernobyl accident.

Georgy Pinkhasov, MAGNUM for New York Time magazine. 1993.

Art and Entertainment. 1st prize. New Analysts” series. Chinese avant-garde artists speak out with irony and humor against the uncompromising Communist regime.

Leo Sherstennikov, Ogonyok Magazine. 1988.

People in the news. 3rd prize. “Duet”. Andrei Sakharov with Anatoly Alexandrov at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. New York.

Andrey Solovyov,

ITAR-TASS photo. 1989.

Stories in Special News. 1st prize.

Series “A Hundred Thousand Demonstrators at the Lenin Monument”.

Intensification of interethnic conflict in Transcaucasia. Baku, Azerbaijan.

Boris Yurchenko, The Associated Press. 1988.

People in the news. 1st prize. “Again in the Spotlight”. Andrey Gromyko, Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. New York.

Sergey Maksimishin, Izvestia newspaper. 2003.

Art and Entertainment. 1st prize.

Actors of the Naive Theater Company amateur troupe having tea

at the Institute of Psychology No. 7, St. Petersburg.

Alexander Zemlyanichenko, The Associated Press. 1996 People in the news. 3rd prize. “Pre-election campaign for president of America”. On the eve of the presidential election, Boris Yeltsin joins a musical group. Rostov-on-Don.

Vladimir Velengurin, “Komsomolskaya Pravda” newspaper. 2000.

Stories in the general news. 1st prize. “Zachistka” Cleaning up . Chechen Republic, Grozny.