Seventeen years ago at one of the meetings with Maria Arbatova1 a story was told about, how in our time, in the steppes near the sea in the south of Russia, cut off from the outside world by a line of marshes and the lack of suitable approach roads, in the settlements of old-believers, live female old-believers. There is patriarchy there, women wear head-scarves, give birth to children, work in the field, pray in the church and are obedient to their husbands in all things… Females, who listened attentively to this story nodded in sympathy: of course, in Moscow, in the capital, everything is quite different, there are many problems, but women are fighting for their rights, and what’s going on in the provinces is intolerable. The story “from the provinces” was noteworthy. But at the end the young narrator added animatedly “And you know, they are happy”. This caused a disbelieving silence and unanimous expulsion from the lady-revolutionaries’ gatherings.
I respect feminists and journalists very much. Were it not for them, those of them, who devoutly believe in their ideals and in the programme of actions, the world would be different. Were it not for the polemic fervour of people, convinced in their belief, burning with the desire if not to change the world right now this minute, then to tell it about such a possibility, so that in time… The Earth would long since have stopped spinning, not being pushed by the thousands of legs (a somewhat small number of those who possess their own opinion amongst the billions of living organisms, inhabiting the Earth), running in one direction – to the defence of their own convictions.
Perhaps, I respect journalists more, because their opinion may depend not only on a programme, an ideology, but constantly forms on a daily basis under the weight of impressions from reality, from the hourly confrontation with it face to face. And bad is that professional, who does not possess the gift of the polemicist, – without that type of intuition, without the ability to anger, “disturb” his audience, he will not be able to reach the audience, to tell it about its own problems. During recent years Oleg Klimov has become famous not only as a photographer – he has been famous as such for many years, – but as a passionate polemicist, appearing in articles on the nature of journalistic photography, in texts about the capabilities of the documentary photographer and photojournalist to manipulate the opinion of the viewer. His keen fervour is directed like a spear towards art-photography.
“Photography is documentary in its nature, it is not necessary to invent anything in one’s head”, – in this the photographer-writer Klimov perpetuates the opposition of journalists and artists, in much artificial, having formed in between the workers photo-correspondents and the “bourgeois aesthetes” photographer-artists in the conditions of the class struggle and struggle for the favour of the new (Soviet) authority even then in the 1920s. This opposition of the documentary and art-ways of photography was preserved in Soviet photography and appears to have been fully inherited by Russian photography right up to the present day. This opposition is that story, which developed wonderful photographers, amongst whom is Klimov, and this story is so old, that it is already not a matter for reflection, but, like a big and thick cocoon, it swaddles “with the cultural situation (tradition)” practically all, who seriously took part in the photographic arena. During the XXth century in Russia photography was officially accepted as a service occupation and was subordinate to – the needs, be they ideological, newspaper-magazines or practical, album-memorial. Because of this the sphere of photography was not recognised in its full scale, and the natural and crossable boundaries between the work of chroniclers, documentalists , historians and analysts of photography and the work of artists and poets of photography were not established.
The fact that the origin of the photographer Klimov is from the Russian photographic school of the pre-perestroika, Soviet period should not detract our attention from his special polemic gift in photography and from his ability to build his visual expression clearly. And it is more profound, and not so categorical, as in groups, which profess not life, but various types of ideology. Klimov, who has spent all his adult life as a photographer, in constant movements in space and occasionally, in time – from one event to another, – cannot be reproached for the artificiality of his subjects or opinion, formed prior to the photograph and not based on observation or on his co-participation in reality.
Why it is so important to emphasise, that in his journeys through subjects, through peaceful themes and war conflicts, through Russia and through the world Klimov moves not only in space, but also in time? Because wars through the incandescence of emotions remain a manifestation of the caveman, and because there is heroism everywhere, standing outside time, because travelling through Russia for his subjects, the photographer finds himself now in the XXIst century with all its nowadays’ attributes, clubs, beauty contests, the image “of contemporary inhabitants” of the world, now in the XIXth century, rural, where the people look completely different and there is a different way of life just as natural to the conditions in which they live.
Klimov – the photographer, in the last texts, published literally in the beginning of the autumn of 2006, names manipulating as the special fortune, as the important characteristic “of quality” of journalistic photography. By this he means the photographer’s personal position in relation to the photographed event (subject, theme), which appears in the choice of the moment of shooting, in the hunting expectation of the instant, when the well-aimed shot of the situation – the expressions of faces – gestures – light – composition allows the photographer to conquer – to hit the target of the viewer’s attention and deliver his own vision of the meaning of the photographed theme. In essence, one is talking about the visualisation of text, which is just as precise as verbalisation, but possesses yet more advantages of authenticity, that is, it leaves the viewer the possibility of augmenting his own ideas around that which was generalised by the photographer. And in this “manipulating” Klimov is worthy of recognition. But we notice, that only a few years ago in an attempt to model, in a verbal text, the specific qualities of the creative work of photojournalists, Klimov could hardly but have recourse to the word “manipulation”: there was a period, when this word was always associated with undemocratic methods of the inculcation of opinions into the collective consciousness. No difference in meaning was made between manipulating and manipulation, and both carried an equally negative value. A few years had to pass and crises in the forms of democracy in Russia had to take place in order for the selected photographers of the generation of perestroika2 as well as the selected representatives of the whole civil generation of new Russia3 came closer to the understanding (not the rejection, not criticism, but recognition of the existence and consideration of the nature of the phenomenon) of Machiavellian and Zen-Buddhist logic of the most recent history. So, they came to the adoption of the methods of the enemy and the use of them against it. Manipulating? The method of inculcation of ideological directives into the consciousness, the method of controlling the consciousness? Excellent, my own manipulation with events, which I see, is both my defence and means of delivering my opinion to others, with the maximum speed. It’s come down to the “evidently” meaningless argument with the obvious, in which it is possible to indicate the weak points of the accepted vision of reality.
If ten years ago professionals had recognised the significance of the contribution of Soviet photo-reportage of the 1930s to the world history of photography, then it was done with reservations, saying “in spite of” the pressure of dominating (and affirming itself with the help of that same photography) Soviet ideology.
So what of Russian women in the photographs of Klimov? This is one of those very themes, which may serve as an illustration of the stance of the photojournalist Klimov: everyone knows that in Russia women have hard lives (but who does live well in Russia?)44 and this is that constant, which lets the actual problems of the society appear in contemporary photographs. It is that prism, through which the universal globalising super-new history of our time acquires its unique Russian characteristics. It is this theme, in the “female portfolio” of Klimov, which he never reveals only from the position of a critic: he loves woman. As an image and as reality (we mean his relationship with her as an artist and model, however, neither has he any problems with her as a man). This theme allows the manipulating on the part of the photographer, it is compliant, but this theme tests and reveals the ethical base of the photographer: a primary declaration of the burden of the female lot, it would seem, allows one to write only in black ink. But the half-tones are preserved in the work of Klimov, and in the photographs-reports, from the place of the events, where women are present, he reveals himself as a psychologist, portraitist and collector of characters. Returning to the anecdote at the beginning of the text, we note, that Klimov manages to combine pathos of the polemicist and admiration for peoples’ characters, which excels the norm, allotted for the creation of chronicles of war and the way of life. He has an idea, but he saves the happiness of woman, which is present in front of the camera, in spite of her circumstances. Klimov manipulates, and nevertheless allows one to love despite objectivity.
Irina Tchmyreva
