YAKUTIA.YAKUTIA, SIBERIA OF SIBERIA by the agency of Andreas Horvath. Bern: Benteli. 160pp (hb) This part by photographer and film-maker Andreas Horvath consists of black and white photographs in travelog form, in a tradition illustrated at Robert Frank with The Americans (1958) Instead of an introduction, as the united by Jack Kerouac in the American 1959 version of Frank's part Horvath asked Monica Muskala to write a passage that intersperses the images and separates them in blocks/chapters. The images were made in Siberia nevertheless most of the photographer's focus is forward the people who live there in small villages, seemingly at the extreme point of the world. We papal court almost car-less dust streets in what gazes like a very rural area of Russia without any trace of real industry leave out for an open-air mine. The barely billboards are remnants of the Soviet era, an episode of Siberia's history that did not debar the local population from keeping its traditions and rites, as illustrated through the photographer. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Horvath's work is more in a vein half-way between August Sander and Bruce Davidson: the main division is essentially a gallery of situational portraits mainly taken outdoors. in the greatest degree of the portraits are contexualized by means of what seems to be a carefully culled background. In many cases the photographer plays with the relationships that the frame established between undivided small element in the foreground and the "social" landscape in the background. In other words, the make submissive is rather unusual and modern but the esthetic is not. The photographer used couple different formats, 35 mm and a waist-level square medium format camera (as revealed at the low angle of the photographs and the flat horizons that cross across the silent "sitters" bodies). In general Horvath exhibits more control in the carefully-composed square images. The general printing quality of the part is good but the reader may still have a question with double-spreads that bar the images with their kennels Horvath's work thence sits comfortably between subjective and documentary travelog genre with saturated color it would probably arise close to a National Geographic photo-essay. united can only regret that for lack of time or command of language in the local language the photographer did not accompany the images with interviews that would reach deeper below the silent surface of things and clan However it must be acknowledged that the facial expressions that Horvath consistantly caught onward film, echoed by rather desolate landscapes, sell a strong sense of silent isolation and resignation, common that seems consistant with life at undivided dead-end of the world. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] COPYRIGHT 2004 Visual Studies Workshop |
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