THINGS
LOOK AT US
“I stand by the entrance to the “flea market” –
the local bazaar. They do not charge for entering. Crowds of people in
crumpled, wet clothes because of rain. Everywhere there is merry liveliness,
one can hear jokes and laughter. Why should anyone come here? What can
be interesting here? Well, ok, I will go in for a minute – I’ll
just take a look. I’ll check what new there is and what disappeared.
And what is not popular. What is valued and admired. What one should avoid.
What, as we sometimes think, can be interesting for others... . Possibly
I will find something what I will like very much or an object that would
remind me of something. Remind me? About what? Oh God...”.
Józef Zontag
“Volcanoes lover”
It is difficult to avoid ideology while presenting flea markets and it
seems almost impossible to assume purely esthetic position. Incidentally,
the title of the series “Everything belongs to us” can be
the best proof. Carnival of objects, captured by the artist, not only
attracts attention with esthetics of each composition, but also points
to typical characteristics of life, values and outlook.
In works by Nadiezda Kuzniecowa there is cooperation and commonly shared
feelings: each of us, after getting here, experienced the feeling of curiosity
mixed with disgust, joy resulting from recognizing objects from childhood
and sorrow because of passing epoch. In that photographic series we face
a situation, in which the artist, thanks to her optics picking fragments
of harmony out of chaos of things, takes us into the world of strange
people and their belongings and surprisingly, in that huge mass we can
find ourselves, comparing market trade to national industry and amateur
artistic activity.
A frame of snow which in a symbolic way doubles the death of exposed objects
can be considered a discovery of the artist. Sunlight fills laid out things
with memory, history and meaning. Nadiezda Kuzniecowa managed to preserve
festive atmosphere of Sunday fair: in carefully collected - according
to color, shape or use - objects there is no desire to grow rich, from
which one cannot escape in everyday flood of advertisements, shop windows
attracting with blinking lights, or boutiques with their sophisticated
decors.
Just like a holiday which needs preparation: changing clothes, adornments,
buying presents and creating a special mood, also a marketplace becomes
a spot for conversations, jokes and naïve forms of deception. In
big cities we rarely observe direct and archaic relationships, we rather
come across worked out and impersonal mechanisms of capitalistic competition,
supported by legal and economic acts, which tell us to feel as a person
of mass psychology with whom anonymous forces of firms and corporations
play a game. Here, in the market we can experience personal charm of
people and objects inseparably connected with them, buy something not
because of rational calculation, but because of inexplicable mystic connection,
attraction felt towards the other world and finally try out our abilities
to trade.
On newspapers, color linings or on cellophane – objects facing
each other, call each other and continue their independent lives, preserving
the character of an epoch. Sometimes I can see a portrait of a salesman,
who brought a thing very dear to him, something he could not throw away.
People bring their things not because of overabundance, but hoping that
someone will need them, thus everybody sincerely praise their goods.
Sale itself is not their goal, it is rather a gift. Different laws prevail
here, different relations between a salesman and a buyer, between the
salesman and the object, that is why those of us who got used to indifference
of professional salesmen, can easily offend the owner of an object with
contemptuous or indulgent opinion about it.
Deliberate removing people from photographs possibly tells even more about
themselves, their internal lives, than direct portraying, precisely depicts
their likes and their sense of esthetics. Of course, sometimes certain
compositions are full of irony or joy resulting from the fact of finding
such absurd (when objects from various epochs get mixed or handcraft is
juxtaposed with mass production) or symbolic combination, then we are
also surprised when we notice portraits of leaders of revolution next
to a toy gun (revolver) and opera libretto.
An important role in the series plays color: it is the dimension of light
which carries the basic load in transmitting texture and materiality
of composition. The role of space is reduced to minimum, things are arranged
in rows and almost squeezed. When in rows, things keep on “standing
out” (that is probably why we so quickly get tired in the bazaar).
While creating the project, the artist conceptually and effectively used
digital technique, allowing for creating the effect of immobilization.
Precise intuition of the artist consists in the fact that color discovers
symbolic space of individual memory of an object. Digital technology
which nowadays has begun to search for its own position within artistic
photography, in that series create an image: sharp digital light, clearly
marked geometrical shapes of objects and sharp even the smallest details
which preserve vanishing world, in a merciless way squeezed out by the
new epoch.
Excellent reduction of an event only to color, frozen composition allows
to assume that Nadiezda Kuzniecowa in that series again exceeds limits,
not of painting (or graphic arts), but broadens the notion of photography.
She manages to avoid the pressure of the moment. However, it is photography
going beyond the limits of composition and calling to create a common
text. Combination of genres results in shock which revives that gap in
meaning that is present in the market, when strategies of attracting
attention and individual memory of an object, ideology of composition
and “thing-in-itself”
crash. Self-sufficiency of painting composition competes with the event
of memory, the object for sale conceals a sign of memory.
Photographs from that series restore our belief of uniqueness of objects.
Randomness and sudden appearing of things in front of our eyes distinguishes
bazaar from classification of products in supermarket. Jean Baudrillard
writes about symbolic emptiness of modern object. Today the main element
is not a peculiar importance of each thing, but attitude towards the
wholeness, comprehensiveness of functional and comfortable, concentrated
on a human being environment: “a human being does not need things, he only
uses them as an experienced specialist”. The value of “abstract
integration”, conciseness of things as a “cultural system
of signs consisting combinatory logics” changes traditional personal
attitude towards objects and only an artist feels the limits of objects.
“In traditional being a thing became outdated... All things, apart
from their practical functions, have another original alleged function
of “a goblet”. This corresponds to their ability of absorption
the spiritual experiencing of a human being.”
The meaning of photography changes within time and together with the
change of context. In this way irony, unintentionally overcoming an observer
of the series, quite soon will be corrected by nostalgia for handmade
and solid objects, objects of “long lasting use”, sculptures
of poets and politicians, because all that, under pressure of our disposable
civilization, artificial materials and everyday change of idols falls
into oblivion.
Enlarging the ability of a painter to see – “the ability to
remain beyond his ‘self’, taking part in articulation of existence
from outside” (M. Merlo-Ponti) with the use of technique of photography,
Nadiezda Kuzniecowa managed to create a series of works which can be
characterized as conceptual and lyrical at the same time.
Gulnara Chajdarowa
Nadiezda Kuzniecowa
Experimental fine art photography, graphic art
Graduated from Muchina Artistic-Industrial College in Sankt-Petersburg,
where she lectured in graphic arts for over 10 years. She got into photography
in the late 1990s. She worked on experimental techniques of printing in
black-and-white photography, since 2003 has worked also with digital media.
Member of Artists Association. Lives in Sankt-Petersburg.
Her works are in collection of Russian National Museum (Sankt-Petersburg);
in private collection of Roger Sonnewald (Berlin, Germany); foundation
Photo IMAGE (Sankt-Petersburg); Marina Gisicz gallery (Sankt-Petersburg).
This paper familiarizes readers of the magazine with phenomenon of Petersburg
school of photography. It became clear that in Russia there are two strong
photographic Diasporas, functioning independent of each other (and at
times having no knowledge about neighbors), - one in Moscow and the other
in Sankt-Petersburg. The difference in cultural tradition between European
artifact of Sankt-Petersburg and broad, Asiatic, “merchant”
(like citizens of Moscow like to call themselves) Moscow, implements in
discrepancy between schools of photography in those two cities. Even theory
of photography, school of writing texts about photography is different:
in Moscow – essayistic impressionistic writing and in Petersburg
– philosophical university school, constantly bearing new names
of those who observes photography and searches for its language specificity.
Nadiezda Kuzniecowa – represents Petersburg photography from the
late 1990s, she is characterized by using technology and secretiveness,
distancing from an image and ability to create text by arranging in rows
separate images. The artist was strongly influenced by artists-photographers,
masters of ‘fine art print’ such as: Aleksander Kitajew, Borys
Smielow, and equally strong conceptual photography from Sankt-Petersburg
(let us mention Andriej Czezyn). The series “Everything belongs
to us” places Kuzniecowa next to Petersburg photographer, Dymitr
Szubin, one of the first (in the late 1990s) who began to work with digital
media treating them as an artistic tool emphasizing the idea of preservation[2].
Gulnara Chajdarowa – represents Petersburg school of philosophy
“mastering photography”. Her text is a characteristic example
of commentary combining tradition of European schools of philosophy of
the 20th century, as well as iconographic and symbolic analysis of art
historians.
Irina Chmyrieva
|
