Discovery: Alexey Titarenko, photographer

À La Boite Verte, I have made another uncovering: Alexey Titarenko.

The photographer has a fascinating history, having grown up and tried to pursue a career as an artist in Soviet Russia. He was receiving worldwide recognition by the 90’s for his photography, and his work as only spread since. Here's his website. You can also find an amazing three-part documentary about him on YouTube, "l'Art et La Maniere": Part One, Two, and Three, which all talk about his history, inspiration, and process. 

His images are characterized by more or less crisp cityscapes, with smokey brushstrokes of people in the foreground and background. Nearly all of his work is centered in St. Petersburg, and in the documentary he speaks of how he seeks to grasp the city’s “eternal” elements: water, ice, canals, so that “one may approach the soul of the city.”  One of the commentators in the documentary says how Titarenko works posses a rare "articulate light," which I though to be a brilliant way of putting it. Titarenko claims that his inspiration for his work includes the short stories and novels of Dostoyevsky, and also the music of Soviet composer, Shostakovich; especially the  13^th Symphony and its third movement, “In the Store.”  The music is deep, harrowing, and Titarenko reflects it beautifully.

Titarenko's photographs are full of poetic richness and tragedy. There is such a heaviness there, one that is also made manifest in the music of Shostakovich. His photography is so empty; so minimalist; which is ironic as the documentary shows the amount of time he puts into every image. Also, it's interesting to remember that these somber, empty fogs of shadow are in fact crowds; that his photos wouldn't exist without hordes of people. However, instead of highlighting the presence of the people, the blurs emphasize their lack; saying not so much, "Here are people," but rather, "here are their traces": Life, and all its elements and manifestations, becomes a transient wisp; a sort of holistic nothingness. 

Also interesting to note, Titarenko's work transcends some very basic rules of photography, which is prided by the fact that it freezes time. However, the images of Titarenko are a selection of movement, completely “atemporal”--being without definite time. I think this is what helps to lend a quality of eternal musicality to these photos. The whole concept of his is to depict the passing of time, which is something that I find really fascinating, as we the photography-viewer, tend to relish the eternal sunset and the off-beat miracle snapshot of chance. His photography, however, instead of presenting itself as an image of "here it is," is more rather a "there it was."