BERLIN.- In OTPUSK - Out of the Blue, Kirill Golovchenko is exhibiting pictures containing colours and contrasts that seem to have been lifted straight from vintage family photo albums - from a time when the sun was etching our memories into our brains. These pictures are seemingly from another time, yet are to be found in the here and now.
The invisible and the veiled, along with the playfulness of being invisible and cloaked oneself, the indulgence and security through which invisibility allows us to bask in these moments - that is precisely what creates this very peculiar emotional tension.
The mundane is sharply in focus: scenes of whimsy, real life on the beach, utter insouciance, like decals of a certain moment.
The round rubber ring, while expunged of it customary purpose, unveils the gaze. A circular window into Ukrainian photography’s past, in which great photographers like Boris Mikhailov have left their traces. Kirill Golovchenko tracks them and leads us into his very own point of view and perception.
The sea is still indigo blue or sometimes turquoise, and during Summer, full of silly stories and extreme contrasts of colour. His past work already had the colour blue as its central motif, as in KACHALKA - Muscle Beach. Kirill worked on his series OTPUSK form 2012 to 2013.
In his own words: “I’ve spent a lot of time on the beach when I was a kid. We spent most summers in an apartment near the sea. I photographed OTPUSK on the beaches of the Black Sea where I grew up. Being at the sea feels great: simultaneously soothing and menacing. Life on the beach is diverse. The Beach is a universal subject and in this case, part of the Ukrainian cultural landscape. To find unusual images in the commonplace is a challenge."
The exhibition is on view at
Pavlov's Dog from August 6 onward.
Kirill Golovchenko (born 1974 in Odessa, Ukraine) studied photography and design under Barbara Klemm and Kris Scholz at Hochschule Darmstadt, 2002 to 2007. Kirill Golovchenko has been awarded among others: European Publishers Award for Photography, 2014; European Photo Exhibition Award; Abisag-Tüllmann-Preis, 2013; Dokumentarfotografie Förderpreis der Wüstenrot Stiftung, 2007.
