Alla Esipovich NO COMMENT in our new gallery dependence Lijnbaansgracht 318 Amsterdam Opening: January 15 from 17 - 19 h
"No Comment"
A photographer working for a fashionable brand or a glossy magazine knows what is expected from him: to show a product or a person in as favourable light as possible, and to turn the viewer/reader into a buyer. Russian born Alla Esipovich knows all about it. While taking photographs of "the beauty and the beautiful" in her own
way, she became more and more aware of the "waste products of glamour", of
people left outside the "images of illusion".
The result of this development: No Comment. A series of portraits Alla Esipovich (St.
Petersburg, 1963) made of people from various backgrounds, from circus artists
to professors, from engineers to sailors. They all expressed their wish to be
photographed and chose the way it should be done. Usually in their own familiar
surroundings in Saint Petersburg,
for that is where all the people portrayed live. Esipovich carefully avoids
voyeurism; rather, the viewer is confronted with the transitoriness of being -
"the other side of glamour" - almost all the people portrayed are aging, most
of them are old. A considerable number of them is photographed naked or while
undressing. Proud and without any inhibition. Names, patronyms, surnames and
professions are clearly stated.
Just like her portraits in "unbecoming" black and white, Alla's photographs of
Aleksej Ingelevich, sometimes with his wife and daughter, are quite
impressive. Ingelevich is a Germanic scholar; he was born with a growing
disorder. In a verbal statement Alla Esipovich explains that these photographs have
come about in close cooperation with Aleksej Ingelevich, which is why she
considers this series a joint project.
But the photographer is not only interested in the transitory and the extraordinary: her series "The Happiest Day of My Life" shows women in their favourite outfit, their daily ambience, and often with the person their beloved. We are looking at people at their very intimate moment, still the atmosphere is never sticky or cynical, because the photographers records the world as a documentarian. A world many people, including art lovers, do not necessarily get to see. It is an unadorned world without any advantageous illumination. The world - let us be honest about it - as it usually presents itself to us.
What is remarkable about her work: the world of Alla Esipovich is indeed typical Russian: harsh, hard and often "styled" with accessories of Soviet origin and which don't really fit in the Western taste. But the photographer also has her classical side: many works remind us of masterpieces of painting and photography because of their composition and philosophy.
Artist information
Alla Esipovich
