I’ve just learned that Alexander ‘SanSanych’ Slusarev, Russian photographer and co-participant of our recent exhibition, died in Moscow, in the age of 66. This is a shocking news, we just met in Moscow, during the opening of our exhibition called ‘One map, two routs’, which was presented as a part of the Russian PhotoBiennale 2010. The exhibition was first displayed last year in Perm, in the Perm Museum of Contemporary Art, headed by Marat Guelman. It was him who decided to combine our works into one show; some consider it a controversial curatorial decision, since Slusarev was widely seen as one of the most famous contemporary photographers in Russia, and aman-geld is virtually unknown (or rather known only virtually).
I managed to miss the opening of the exhibition in Perm, it was clashing with another events I promised to attend (the planing was meshed up), but I presented at the opening virtually, via a web-cam. This time I managed to come to Moscow, we had a good conversation at the event, and later exchanged comments (he also kept his blog at the Livejournal, called slusarev; this one is actually kept alive, by his son).
Some considered our works very similar to each other; many more consider them very different, almost polar; Slusarev was seen as picturing the ‘Russian Soul”, and aman-geld is often labeled as ‘soul-less, cold and inhuman’. Oh, well. Who cares now?
R.I.P., San Sanych.
PS: This is an interesting picture itself, I took it at the other exhibition in Moscow, it portrays the young Slusarev, and taken by another Russian photographer, Andrey Bezukladnikov. It’s very playful itself, and I made it even more so, by distorting the frames. Slusarev sent me a smilik when he saw the picture.
PPS: I wrote about his death in aman_geld, and later also included this event into a monthly gallery.
Playing with the futures, and pasts 