Gueorgui Pinkhassov

         Pinkhassov's photography is anything but traditional reportage: the faces and details of machinery picked up on his camera are difficult to discern. The focus of attention shifts to the rich colours and textures of the objects that compose the employees' environment.

        The human being is seen in these images as an integral part of the system, setting in motion thousands of tiny mechanisms.

          In March 2020, a renowned photographer Gueorgui Pinkhassov visited the Prirazlomnaya platform. During the week he spent in the Barents Sea, he created a series of dozens of images that tell a story of life at the Prirazlomnaya, a life that others never see.

       Through the prism of the camera, Prirazlomnaya appears as a symbol of the synergy of technology and humanity — an organism whose effective functioning is only possible if each of the elements interact successfully.

         The human being is seen in these images as an integral part of the system, setting in motion thousands of tiny mechanisms.

Project

         All my creative work is moved by bare instinct.

         In try to live in the moment. This is why street photography is congenial to me.

         Yet it does not at all exclude what Cartier-Bresson called geometry. By organizing a space, we fill it with rhythm and metaphors. This is the great pleasure of creation: in a very short period of time you have to make a decision, define your priorities. This time-span is infinitesimal, and the shorter it is, the more honest the photograph is.

         At some point you realize that you don’t choose the photograph, it chooses you. You merge with reality. And you must submit to harmony, if you want to master it.

Gueorgui Pinkhassov

          I am interested in being in a state of search …

         You never know anything in advance, and that’s the quintessence of creative work in photography as well as in ordinary life.

         Photography is a sort of concentrated behavioural model. Thanks to the process of photographing, you are more observant and fearless in your experiments in real life as well. Those who have experienced it once will never give up that way of life.

         Looking over my own photographs, I have to confess that the best ones have always been something unexpected, a surprise, almost a mistake. The majority of them I didn’t even see while taking them.

         The degree of predictability is inversely proportional to its social value. Otherwise, you find yourself stereotype- ridden, you illustrate something presupposed, guessed in advance, and you see things that seem already familiar to you. Not knowing something is more worthwhile. Flattering yourself and your surroundings is a dubious pleasure, the real pleasure remains the search for truth and reality.

Gueorgui Pinkhassov

         I think separation into form and content is farfetched. If a visual art has magic, it does not have to carry any content.

         Magic becomes the content. Metaphysical pattern replaces physical content. Everyday narrative is not worth of the pattern of eternity. Meaning loses meaning, and it is harmony that dictates the world order.

         I consider myself a pattern photographer, and the value of this school can be understood by someone sensitive to ornamental motifs. Here design and poetry rule, for every time you rhyme colours, signs.

         The presence of metaphor makes pattern poetry. The boundaries of pattern art — over the distance between the primitive and the arcane, minimalism and complex patterns — are no less conceptual than the classics or postmodernism.

Gueorgui Pinkhassov

         There is no composition in photography; there is camera angle. You cannot just arrange objects on a plane like a painter does. A unique angle happily found in space puts everything into perspective by itself.

         Anyway, to lessen the pathos, photography is, among other things, a routine record of everyday life. A notebook. The aim of modern humanity is to preserve, to leave a memory of himself and his environment for posterity.

         But I also care about the process, so for me photography is often a game and I enjoy it. The artist at work is selfless.

         The most important and most difficult thing is not to look for anything. To be empty. Any desire leads to repetition.

         Expectation equals prejudice. It is foolish to expect something where only the unexpected is valued — you just have to react in time.

Gueorgui Pinkhassov

         I know one should not search for success in an existing system of values, but try to create a new one every time: it can become banal if you linger on it for too long. The power of our Muse lies in her meaninglessness. Even the style can turn one into a slave if one does not run away from it, and then one is doomed to repeat oneself. Contemporary art is always a novelty. The notion of "contemporary" changes every morning, leaving contemporaries to sort it out.

         I try to keep my photography enigmatic, but at the same time quite simple. It must be understandable, but not immediately. It should take time to sink in.

Gueorgui Pinkhassov

         You have to get used to it, so that it becomes simple. Simplicity is a vector towards clarity. As the planet maintains its orbit by subjecting itself to two opposing forces, so does art: simplicity and mystery complement each other.

©️ Gazprom Neft PJSC, 2021
©️ G. Pinkhassov, 2021

Any use of the material, including reproduction in whole or in part
to another Internet site, requires permission in writing from Gazprom Neft PJSC.

For questions about this permit, please contact info@gazprom-neft.ru

Automated extraction of site information is prohibited.