I have for the past weeks been reading the Danish translation of ”Second-Hand Time” by Ukrainian/Belarussian author Svetlana Alexievich, 2015 Nobel Prize winner, a brilliant book, an amazing insight to what it meant to live in Soviet Union and today in Putin’s Russia. ”A history of human feelings” as she writes in the text below (from her website), were she describes her documentary method; must be an inpiration for all documentarians…:

I’ve been searching for a genre that would be most adequate to my vision of the world to convey how my ear hears and my eyes see life.I tried this and that and finally I chose a genre where human voices speak for themselves. Real people speak in my books about the main events of the age such as the war, the Chernobyl disaster, and the downfall of a great empire. Together they record verbally the history of the country, their common history, while each person puts into words the story of his/her own life. Today when man and the world have become so multifaceted and diversified the document in art is becoming increasingly interesting while art as such often proves impotent. The document brings us closer to reality as it captures and preserves the originals. After 20 years of work with documentary material and having written five books on their basis I declare that art has failed to understand many things about people.

But I don’t just record a dry history of events and facts, I’m writing a history of human feelings. What people thought, understood and remembered during the event. What they believed in or mistrusted, what illusions, hopes and fears they experienced. This is impossible to imagine or invent, at any rate in such multitude of real details. We quickly forget what we were like ten or twenty or fifty years ago. Sometimes we are ashamed of our past and refuse to believe in what happened to us in actual fact. Art may lie but document never does. Although the document is also a product of someone’s will and passion. I compose my books out of thousands of voices, destinies, fragments of our life and being. It took me three-four years to write each of my books. I meet and record my conversations with 500-700 persons for each book. My chronicle embraces several generations. It starts with the memories of people who witnessed the 1917 Revolution, through the wars and Stalinist gulags, and reaches the present times. This is a story of one Soviet-Russian soul.

http://www.alexievich.info/indexEN.html

Swedish master of photography Jean Hermanson is also at the Street Photography exhibition in Copenhagen. With photos from

Dublin in the 60’es. I picked – with the help of curator Finn Larsen and a link to information about his exhibition in Swedish town Landskrona 2016 – one:

A girl on a rainy street in Dublin 50 years ago. Of course it reminds me of the boy with wine bottles in Paris, caught by the camera of Henri Cartier-Bresson. The girl in Dublin carries a bottle of milk and – can’t really see it – a pack of cigarettes? She is waiting for cars to pass so she can pass and go home to mum and dad. The Swedish filmmaker and photographer caught the situation and as a true documentarian conveys the atmosphere. In an upcoming film about Hermanson, he says ”when it rains, it is damn poetic and sensual”. And a text taken from the Landskrona exhibition:

At the end of the 1960s the photographer Jean Hermanson (1938–2012) travelled to Dublin. His plan was to follow in the footsteps of James Joyce, with the camera as his instrument. But instead of recreating Leopold Bloom’s route on that famous day he chose to point his camera at the children. Children became Hermanson’ guide in the streets, in this world of both darkness and play, and his documentation of their life developed into a large, full work with a strong feeling for the children’s experiences. The photographs from Dublin were Hermanson’s first major photographic work. But almost fifty years were to pass before he began to sort the rich material towards the end of his life…

The film being made on Hermanson is produced by Stavro Film and supported by SVT, Sweden among others. So at some point it will be broadcast. Link below.

http://stavrofilm.se/?p=1042

Gadefotografi 1917-2017, Øksnehallen, København. 28. juni – 1. august, Daily 10.00 – 20.00, Friday and Saturday 10.00 – 22.00.

www.dgi-byen.dk/oeksnehallen/

 

 

 

 

Swedish photographer Jens-Olof Lasthein travelled six years in the Caucasus area. In the Street Photography exhibition in Copenhagen his newly published photo book ”Meanwhile Across the Mountain” is represented through big panoramic colour photos documenting everyday life from the countries in the region plus a 20 minute long slideshow of great quality. As one who has visited Georgia and Armenia several times I was happy to get acquainted with Lasthein’s well composed and poignant pictures. One of them above:

Grozny, Chechnya 2011: The boys stand in a ruin, behind them a ruin landscape as well, and a church and some buildings, appartments probably. What is the future for the boys, for Chechnya, from where we nowadays are used to see glossy propaganda pictures from the Russian led Kadyrov regime. The photo is of course taken out of a context, when watching the slideshow you get the sense of watching a film with a narrative. Lasthein was interviewed in connection with the book coming out, here is a quote, link below:

”Now, about street photography. For me, the term simply means that I start out by working in the streets. Occasionally, I can be so lucky as to catch something in an instant, but mostly I need more time with my subjects. I have learned that only through getting to know people really well am I able to put myself in the most unpredictable situations. These surroundings then evolve and become circumstances that take me much farther than I could ever have imagined. Searching for these moments is very much what drives me.”

https://www.lensculture.com/articles/jens-olof-lasthein-meanwhile-across-the-mountain#slideshow

Gadefotografi 1917-2017, Øksnehallen, København. 28. juni – 1. august, Daily 10.00 – 20.00, friday and saturday 10.00 – 22.00.

www.dgi-byen.dk/oeksnehallen/

1991, Moscow, the failed coup d´état, extensively described in literature and films. I am right now reading the documentary novel ”Secondhand Time. The Last of the Soviets” by Svetlana Aleksijevitj, where she brings together conversations she has had with Russians over a period of 20 years. The life in Soviet Union including reactions to what happened in 1991. In films ”The Event” by Sergei Loznitsa comes to my mind, filmed in St. Petersburg. Eminent use of archive material.

Danish photographer Krass Clement was there, in Moscow, where he did not take pictures of Jeltsin in front of the parliament in Moscow or other post-coup events – he went to attend the funeral of three of the victims of the riots. In Krasnaja Pesnja Park. At the exhibition ”Street Photography” five of his photos are presented, see one of them above.

They stand like statues, lined up, two men, two women, they are touched by the situation, are they relatives to the deceased, are they present because they were, like many, for the coup that the so-called junta wanted to happen to save Soviet Union – we are not told, Clement does not want to inform, he aims at conveying a moment in the lives of four people, a serious moment, a moment of grief, a moment ”where noone talked”, my translated title of ”Hvor Ingen Talte”, the photo book, Clement published from Moscow. He – as written on his website, link below – wants ”to capture a state of mind”.

Krass Clement, educated at The Danish Film School, published his first book in 1968. Photos from his last book ”Impasse Hotel Syria” are on display at David’s Samling in Copenhagen.

http://krassclement.com/introduction.html

Gadefotografi 1917-2017, Øksnehallen, København. 28. juni – 1. august, Daily 10.00 – 20.00, friday and saturday 10.00 – 22.00.

www.dgi-byen.dk/oeksnehallen/

… with the subtitle ”A Tribute to Everyday Life”, a big and impressive exhibition in Copenhagen, that runs until August 1st.

International it is content-wise, and everything – i.e. the fine catalogue and the short informative texts next to the photos of the artists are in Danish AND English. It is very professionally set up, let me salute the curators: Morten Brohammer and Finn Larsen, and the text writer Jens Erdman Rasmussen.

Why and how? ”We have for some time been keen on doing an exhibition on street photography but could not decide on the right story, We found that story in Vivian Maier, who after her death became a sensation, when her amazing photographic legacy by chance was discovered at an art auction 10 years ago. Since then the myth of the nanny with the camera has grown; especially as the story of a loner who worked alone on her own photographic vision”.

So the Vivian Maier exhibition is launched as the main attraction, including the opportunity to sit down and watch the film about her, ”Finding Vivian Maier”. BUT the exhibition, as the curators indicate in the quote above includes much much more. There are photo classics like Diane Arbus, Atget, Krass Clement, my personal hero Robert Frank, Walter Evans, Hans Eijkelboom, Jean Hermanson, Koudelka, Jens-Olof Lasthein, Garry Winogrand, and many other fine photographers from Denmark or abroad.

I was there for some hours and have not seen it all the way I want to. It is overwhelming and I was happy to sit down to rest and re-watch not only some of the Vivian Maier film but also ”Don’t Blink” about and with the phenomenon Robert Frank, who is given a whole wall with the special edition of Süddeutsche Zeitung, 64 pages, printed by his publisher Steidl in 2016.

Copenhageners and foreigners who visit the capital of Denmark, go and visit:

Gadefotografi 1917-2017, Øksnehallen, København. 28. juni – 1. august, Daily 10.00 – 20.00, friday and saturday 10.00 – 22.00.

www.dgi-byen.dk/oeksnehallen/

The last part of the Putin Interviews is by far the best of the four. It is shot after Trump was elected as President in the US and the first half hour of the conversation deals with that issue: Did Russia influence the American election, did Putin know about it, did he order the hacking etc. Stone seems now much better prepared and puts direct questions that leads to Putin – to a certain degree – analysing the American election and the victory of Trump. With archive clips put in from American media (Hillary Clinton, Obama, Biden, McCain etc.). From there the conversation goes to cyberwar, the American use of the stuxnet computer worm in Iran, the fear of a world war, of another Hiroshima and Nagasaki…

”It’s not possible to give fear to the Russian people”, says Putin, who reflects on all the questions put to him.

The last part also works better because the first half hour is set up like on a stage: Two chairs in front of each other in a big room. Next to Oliver Stone the indispensable interpreter Sergei Churdinov on one side, on the other side the dop Anthony Dod Mantle pointing his small camera towards Putin – and around them standing or sitting on chairs along the walls, security people, many more camera and sound people, producers I guess, it’s all visible, they are all part of a play, and now I accept the dramatising editing that I felt confused about in the first part. Maybe I just got used to it? After this Stone goes to the Red Square, without Putin, he visits the grave of John Reed, he says with a smile ”where is Trotsky”, it’s a part that fills the gap before the final meeting, where Stone questions Stalin, asks about Putin’s parents, characterises him as one of the wealthiest men in the world, Putin denies he has bank accounts all over, and finally of course: If you are elected in 2018 you have been in power, in 2024, in more than 20 years… Putin seems a little irritated, the only time during the four interview parts, about the theme (my words, Stone is more polite) ”power corrupts”… The interview sessions are over, Oliver and Vladimir hug each other, Putin says to Stone that he, Stone, will get in problems for this documentary program, advises again Stone’s wife to go to St. Petersburg during the White Nights and off he leaves with all his people through the pompous halls. The show is over. The actors leave the stage.