Битеф

CONCENTRATED AND SAD Stay, fleeting moment! You are not So much divine, as unrepeatable... Joseph Brodsky Any photograph exists in two hypostases: as a fact of history and a fact of art. A photographer is a creator, but he is also a chronicler. Viktor Bazhenov luckily combines the qualities that make his photographs interesting in both hypostases. He never pursued cheap success, never photographed bigtimers who have now become history or fallen idols. His heroes were people of difficult, often tragic fate: Sergei Paradzanov, Venedikt Yerofeyev, Vladimir Vysotsky, Viktor Popkov. He photographed them not when they were in the peak of fame, but in moments of disgrace when one couldn’t get his works published and another had just served his term in jail. He took pictures of Anatoli Vasiliev when his open rehearsals were censored, of Alfred Schnitke and Edison Denisov when they were blacklisted in Russia. Even Robert Sturua’s famous production of Richard 111 was started to be photographed long before the triumphant London tour when it was highly acclaimed by public and critics. Creating this cultural history in portraits requiered not only excellent professional skills, but also unfailing taste, allowing to separate the wheat from the chaff. Bazhenov’s portraits are permeated with the existential motif of loneliness. His characters seldom smile, they are concentrated and sad, their faces reflecting both their private experiences and the sensibilities of the time. David Borovsky, submerged in thought, - this picture was taken shortly before Youri Ljubimov's emigration, Oscar Rabin, photographed

Vladimir Visocki

on the last day before leaving the country for good. Viktor Bazhenov is honest and bold not only in the choice of his characters, but also in his photographic style. He never tries to flatter the model, doesn’t photograph people against the background of expensive carpets or antique furniture, never suggests poses or attires. In Bazhenov’s portraits the man is not just part of his setting, but the central value and central character. Bazhenov tries to avoid stunts. He photographs his characters in the natural light (usually pouring through the window) and in their natural milieu. For him photographing is not merely registering moments of reality, as in reporterćs work, but the art of what Cortier Bresson called “crucial moment.” it is not accidental that while having quite good command of color techniques, for exhibitions Bazhenov prefers to make photographs in black-and-white that offers a greater degree of abstraction and concentration. Taken “in flight”, Bazhenov’s photographs are striking by the clarity of concept and completeness of the composition and this must be the reason why with all the spontaneity of the foreshortening, they make the impression of having been taken in a studio. This is not an attempt to copy or model an object. This is concentration of reality to the degree of symbol in the effort to catch that fleeting moment when life becomes Being. Marina Davidova

Eimuntas Niakrošus