Contemplations of Sergei Nikolaev
“Our junk has become art. Our junk has become history” (from S. Sontag. On Photography)
Sergei Nikolaev. Photographic Junk. 1989/2020. Video. Courtesy of the artist
Photographic junk is space junk
“Our junk has become art. Our junk has become history” (from S. Sontag. On Photography)
It is time to stand still. When one is going forward, does one feel that the time is going by? When you stand still, you clearly “see” it passing by, it passed by, there is no time left. You peer into the done… I kept a little bit of thrown away. I take this black paper parcel and look through it. This is not like water or sand slipping through my fingers, these are LAYERS of compressed photo paper of different density and fragments of film stained with developing and fixative solutions. Surely, it is possible to look closely into the things that have been developed, but it is better to close the eyes and feel callousness of paper and long lost smell of chemicals. It has been 31 years...
Sergei Nikolaev
Soviet and Russian photographer Sergei Nikolaev (b. 1957) known for his documentary photography projects on city and village life of Karelia, Crimea, Ukraine and Northern Caucasus in the 1980s and the 1990s. His bright insights became the life history of a lost country – the Soviet Union. His works are part of the collection of The Pushkin Museum.
