Sergey Bratkov

NO PARADISE (Iris Truebswetter)

THERE IS NO PARADISE
by Iris Truebswetter

Photography in Russia and Ukraine had to be restructured after the end of the socialist system. It was able to find its place in the field of art following Western standards, with new tendencies regarding form and content which quickly surpassed painting in terms of modernity.

The nineties were marked by this radical change. On the one hand, one was looking back to the modernism of Rodčenko and on the other hand, forms of staged photography emerged, reaching as far as Tableaux vivants and staged landscape photography, documentary photography, and action photography. In addition artists experimented with modifying their photos into ironical and cynical images via “photoshop”. In Moscow many important artists started the new era of photography with the Group AES, Efimov, Group Fenso, Infante father and son, Liberman, Kulik, Mukhin, Semyonov a.s.o.

There was a special development in Charkov in the Ukraine, where, in the late sixties, photographers had established themselves in underground art in some sort of radical realism . Members of the Vremia group not only transformed “permitted” topics like architecture and labour but also handled the taboo theme of male nakedness. The resistant, taboo breaking ”Fast Reaction Group” with Bratkov, Michailov and Solonski grew up out of this.

From Kharkiv to Sao Paulo

Sergey Bratkov was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine in 1960. From 1969 through 1978 he frequented the Repin Art College in Kharkiv. Then he enrolled in the department of Industrial Electronics at the Polytechnic Academy in Kharkiv and graduated in 1983, an education that was quite normal in the Soviet Union.

The exhibition list starts with personal shows in Kharkiv, Cheb and Tel Aviv in 1987. In the years following he found international recognition in solo exhibitions at the Forum Stadtpark Graz, in Berlin, Nuremberg, Wisconsin and Triest, and took part in smaller and larger post Soviet collective exhibitions from Finland to New York, at international art fairs, at the Sao Paulo Biennale 2002 and the Moscow Photobiennale.

Sergey Bratkov was noticed for the first time in Moscow in 1993, when his photo object “We all devour one another” was shown in the exhibition: “The Art of contemporary Photography from Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia”. His work was on the poster, the invitation card and the catalogue front page. At that time passing the borderline to the object was new in the Russian photo scene. However Moscow has only really acknowledged Bratkov’s works in recent years when the “Gallery Regina” showed several of his children series and this year when he represented Russia at the Sao Paulo Biennale.

The Kharkiv origin

The work of Bratkov is very much influenced by his Kharkiv origin. For many years he worked with Boris Mikhailov, who was older and had already developed his style of radical realism during his underground years in the Vremia group, and he learned to name things without taboo and palliation. In Kharkiv, a big Russian Ukrainian industrial town, the photogenic misery is to be found everywhere in the streets: homeless children, casuals, prostitutes, frozen corpses, drunkards, rightwing radical hooligans, wretched old women.

The experience of social realism is essential. In its context the portrait is of special value, in its transcendent , stereotype form. Whether it showed party secretaries, workers, peasants, space travellers, scholars or soldiers, they were all typified as heroes. This way of crude standardization is also well known from the art of National Socialism.

Action art exerted a great influence, though it was adopted from the West. Crudely repeating several aspects, it reflected the contemporary political situation, which had not brought the expected liberties and democracy. For the young artists it was a dramatic situation. They joined together in groups “The Institution of Unstable Thoughts”, “The Fast Reaction Group”, “The Frontier of the Cultural Revolution” and “The International Masoch Foundation”, but they couldn’t find recognition and support from the competent authorities in the Ukraine. If it had not been for foreign organizations, who made work possible for the young artists, many plans would have dried up. Young curators received scholarships in America. The Soros Center in Kiev opened its doors und supported the young art scene, a Swiss foundation supported “The Institute of Unstable Thoughts”. Bratkov was part of the scene, with corporeal performances, intelligent conceptual installations, with broad range photography, mostly ironical, political, subversive. (Instead of elections, gay tennis players in black suits play for the title of President)

In Bratkov’s work the problems of the socialism of the past are omnipresent and are transferred smoothly into those of the contemporary society.

Ukrainian Identity

After the vote for independence the Ukraine saw itself confronted with the problem of creating a national identity. Concerning language, religion and ethnical membership the country was divided into at least two parts. Identification with the great artists, poets and scientists from their own country was difficult, because most of them had long been under Russian rule. Also contemporary artists were seeking increased recognition in Moscow, where culture and politics were more liberal and international. Accordingly, the task with which the government charged the artists, was the search for the “mystery of the Ukrainian identity”. There were artists who engaged in that task and came up with folklore. Others engaged in it and came up with rude state criticism

Possibly Bratkov’s work also has its roots in this general search for the identity of his native country. He gave his own answer: “There is no paradise: ”History is blotted with the cooperation with Nazi Germans (“If I were a German”). The beautiful childhood memories don’t subsist (“There is no paradise”). School mates turned into psychopaths (Chikatilo). Propaganda can not hide the amorality of the state (“Bad time stories”). The new state has no values and morality (prison, raspredelitel). The new images of advertising, TV, picture magazines form the new culture (djeti, sekretarsh). Thus Bratkov answers the question about the identity of the juvenile Ukrainian State.

But why not take the children as a parable for the state itself? In Kiev the huge monument of Rodina Mat, the mother of the motherland, armed with sword and shield, rises high above the Dnjepr, ,as a symbol for the state, formerly the Soviet Union. The artist confronts this grandiose solemnity with the pathos of reality, children on the dark side of community, in the gutter, being caught between the millstones of the social and economic changeover. The symbolic force of the boy with the cigarette and the young girl with the cosmetic case and of the child in prison uniform between the endless row of beds without mattresses easily replace the huge bronze lady with sword and shield. These children are the hopeless carriers of the new state.

Literary games

The idea of l’art pour l’art was not highly valued in socialism. Lenin’s short flirtation with the avantgarde had to yield all too soon to the instrumental use of art aimed at socialist socialisation. This led to the official verdict of avantgarde art being contraproductive reactionary and bourgeois, even if it seemed to be non-committal to the outsider. Consequently, the narrative played a central role in the pictorial arts, each artwork telling its own story of the socialist victory.

To bring texts to light, like the horrible verses of young pioneers, and illustrate them literally, seems to have a similar importance for the understanding of everyday life as the opening of the government archives had for the historical understanding of political events. The texts, being part of the grotesque series “If I were a German”, do not only explain but also serve as an additional level of meaning. The role of Nabokov’s “Lolita” is quite present. Although the texts are not quoted, several lines seem to have directly inspired the series “Djeti”. Even Dostoyevsky shines through. Bratkov’s series from the prison, and the educational establishment seems to be a direct commentary on Ivan’s description of the misery of children and his pleading for a protected childhood. in the “Brothers Karamazov”.

Girlies, Nabokov und Dostoyevsky

Bratkov is not inclined to lead the discussion on the level of morality about pre-adolescent girls in his photographs. He finds himself amidst the new fashion of girlie culture, which initially worked on a feminist level in the West. Young female artists especially occupy themselves with their own adolescence and propagate the images of young girls in their worlds of living: Rita Ackermann, Nicky Habermann, Karen Kilimnik, Elizabeth Peyton, Bettina Sellmann, Katharina Wulffen and others.

“A new objective documentarism enforced an exact investigation into the inner milieu, where adolescence appeared as some rather distressing event. In their photographs Rineke Dijkstra, Tina Barney, Hellen van Meene and Sarah Jones style the adolescents as icons of juvenile depression”(translation by the author).

If Bratkov’s images of young girls have any resemblance to the girlies on the outside then there do exist two basic differences: the irony of the artist and the childlike trust of the models. Bratkov confronts them as a seemingly neutral reporter, also as a stage manager, as a seducer and at the same time as a trustworthy elder, to whom the girls confide their most secret wishes. They are more open than the prude, depressive creatures of the young photographs, join in the game of imitation and sexual seduction only to find themselves victims of an ironic game.

Some interpretations

Although the number of publications dealing with Bratkov’s work is rather small up to now,( a typical feature of the CIS states – there are too few art magazines, there is too little art trade, and too few monographic catalogues, and outside the country the artists are mostly shown in group exhibitions –) several clear tendencies of interpretation can be found.
Natalia Filonenko, Marta Kuzma and Irina Čmureva have dealt more closely with Bratkov’s work.
Natalia Filonenko from Kiev has a sound knowledge of the artist’s working method. In the series she identifies the typifying of social roles and the inclusion of contemporary social influences such as advertising, kitsch, beauty contests on TV, Hollywood films and illustrated magazines. The irony and absurdity of the situation often shines through.
She interprets the children’s images on a general value level, pointing to the absolute lack of morality. The egotism of the child is opposed to the photographer as a tempting seducer.
Together with other critics she realises that the series “Children’s Horrors” has to be explained to people from the West. The sadistic images are based on black humour quatrains, which was a way of substituting for the prohibited B- Movies and dealt with young pioneers.

Children in cellar spending their time,
Being at playing at Gestapo,
Brutally, brutally torturing a man –
That was the technician Potapov.
In sanitation he worked for a long,
Visiting cellars and garrets.
Children were playing in the cellar this time –
That was the end of Potapov.

For Irina Čmureva the central statement in Bratkov’s work is the creation of archetypes. The Nothing and the Emptiness stand behind those faces which reflect the idols of mass culture and thereby lose their identity. The artist’s heroes are thus the symbol for the social and cultural anomy.

Marta Kuzma investigates the pseudo documentation of the images, into the chosen means from the world of advertising and illustrated magazines, and into the artist’s focusing on youths who don’t have any responsibility. „Referring to the aesthetics of horror or the banal presentation implicit in advertising, Bratkov utilizes those tools that appeal to mass culture, while emphasizing art's ultimate impotence in attempting to find solace and definition outside of politics, history and social urgency. For, as we all know only too well, sugar-coated packages may house things explosive in nature.”

A research in adolescence

Whoever looks for the general message in Bratkov’s work, should take the time to have a good look and should not be superficially intrigued by the scandal. The general idea in the photo series is the difficult search for one’s own ego in adolescence. Bratkov’s points of reference are neither moral, nor political nor religious, but the visible manifestations of mass culture, as they are produced by mass media and advertisement. Which are the patterns by which the youth orientates himself?

Bratkov stages the story of pre-adolescence in the scene of the political and social systems of the former Soviet Union and the anomy of the contemporary Ukraine. On the one hand his perceptions give interesting insights into the widely unknown value systems and action patterns of the lower levels of these societies. On the other hand , if you are prepared to leave out the aspects of folkore, you will have to accept Bratkov’s socio-psychological investigations in the context of other societies. Thus dress and pose are a fundamental criterion of identification. The pre-adolescent girl coming to the casting for advertising photos, who is prepared to be photographed in the exaggerated seductive pose and dress of a prostitute. She is made up and convinced of her theatrical qualities, wants to identify herself with the idols in the illustrated magazines. The young hooligan in the educational enterprise cheekily waving with the cigarette and proudly wearing a Mickey Mouse sweater wants to identify himself with the longed- for Western world in the role of a grown- up, being symbolically proven as such by the cigarette. The gloomy- looking children in prison, wearing prison clothes, who only reluctantly allow themselves to be photographed, lack the identification with the adult world. They identify themselves with their miserable situation, they cannot show any self- respect. On the other hand, the little boys sniffing glue happily announce their entry into the drug scene of the adults.

When Bratkov vicariously produces young Chikatilo’s school diary, in which the subsequent horribly perverse murders are coolly predicted, he describes with soft irony the extremity of a failed search for one’s role. The work is based on two sources, the experience of the artist’s own school days and the published facts about the murderer.

All examples are more than role games and the reference to intellectual emptiness. It’s a differentiated sociological study about the mechanisms of growing up, where Bratkov is interested in the point of rupture, where socialization threatens to fail, and it is doubtless also an attempt to explain society in the nucleus of its juvenile, not yet responsible members, internalising the values of the same society.

In Bratkov’s work the conclusion of the coloured children series is being formed by a black and white series about the loss of Paradise. Only when childhood is seen as banal in the retrospective, does it finally vanish from sight. Here Bratkov created a work, that is very touching: “There is no paradise”. The black and white exposures show the parental garden, remembered as a blossoming children’s paradise, wildly growing, the parents aged, their bodies spent, showing their wounds, that had been afflicted by the once beloved dog. The identification with their own sources, with their own childhood is being questioned.

Undoubtedly the retrospective into the own childhood is not free of sentimentality, but the imagination of a male paradise is full of cynicism: “If I were a German…” (in collaboration with Michailov and Solonsky) calls to life secret dreams of men, staged in the time of Nazi German occupation in the Ukraine. This series, no doubt, works at a historical clearing up, but with the means of a sexual grotesque. The photo series remains an absurd game, never changes into documentation, the players keep their names, their origin, playing a confusing game of changing identities.

Portrait

For several years the figure - and connected with it, realism – has been a strong theme in modern art and consequently, the portrait has taken on an important role in the current international photo scene, often in large sizes and somehow manipulated. When Sergey Bratkov chooses the portrait as his format, he refers in a large scale to the Soviet tradition of styling heroes. but his heroes do not belong to the members of the order of Lenin, they come from the ranks of urban marginal groups. He builds up tension from his choice of models, clothing, poses and surroundings. When everything is put together the mixture is quite explosive. Nevertheless the images are formal, aesthetic, harmonious and artistically correct. The size adapts to the contents, the smaller sizes are lovingly dedicated to the little girls, the little hooligans come out quite big. But what we see and what is touching us is the impropriety, the scandalous, in terms of morality:

Little Lolitas, provocatively painted and dressed, set in picturesque but extremely shabby surroundings: the worn red easy chair, the typical horrible Soviet staircase, the bathroom with the pipes on top of the wallpaper, all this evokes the stale soviet pseudo bourgeoisie.

“Criminal” children in prison, looking humiliated in shabby prison clothes, stand in a landscape of beds with no mattresses. The spectator wishes the children into the normality of a loving home and a good school (see Dostoyevsky)

The street children fight misery and hunger by sniffing glue, the scandal of their drug delirium being expressed by double exposure, children nobody cares for and who will not have a long life.

The less criminal children in educational establishments who have also fallen through the social filter. They are the victims of a catastrophic economic and social situation and an incomplete transformation of social values

Presenting the portraits in series leads to a pseudo documentary, pseudo scientific seriousness.. The picture material is so convincing that we are disconcerted by the frightening social reality, even though we know that we are “only” looking at staged photography.

What remains, however, beyond all staging is the charm of the child, his embarrassment, his innocence. This is the place of incongruence in the portrayed scene, the point, where the image touches us, where the arc of tension finds its counterforce.

Black Humour

Critical appraisal of contemporary issues clearly stands back behind playful staging and commenting on the spirit of the time. Humour – and be it more than black – is always present and the inclination to ironic exaggeration includes the viewer. In some series the artist plays around with his models in a sheer absurd and cabaret manner. Looking at Bratkov’s work one should always remember to consider the black humour, otherwise one is easily nonplussed. “It does not become clear, what the photographer intends, making the mass murderer his subject and not forgetting to point out that Chikatilo was a party member…”

Whoever doesn’t like black humour might at least make an excursion into our recent past and think about the happy and clean petty bourgeoisie of mass murderers, who, especially, in Germany and the Soviet Union have haunted the society more horribly than a single maniac ever can.