Reconstructing E-E KOZLOV's photo archive from the 1980s

Hannelore Fobo, curator and independent researcher, with David Crowley, Head of the School of Visual Culture at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Hannelore Fobo is showing Book 1 of (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov's reconstructed photo archive fromf the 1980s. Film still from Kozlov's video from 16 march 2018, taken at Egbert Baqué Contemporary, Berlin, during the artist's solo show USA-CCCP-CHINA. more >>

Synopsis

In the 1980s, (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov extensively used the medium of black and white photography in his art, as documented by his large photo archive used for painted photo collages, books, figurative paintings, and more.

In this article, I will show how some technical features of the Soviet FED-2 camera and the SVEMA and TASMA black and white negative films the artist employed helped me to reconstruct the original filmstrip sequences. At the same time, I set myself the task not to interfere with the arrangement of filmstrips Kozlov himself had established with his artistic practice.

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov at his solo exhibition of contact sheets, photographs, and works on paper E-E. Cult Heroes of the 1980s. St. Petersburg Archive and Library of Independent Art (PAiBNI), 2000 The contact sheets to the right are from a photo shooting with members of the Kino band Georgy Guryanov, Yury Kasparan, Alexander Titov and Viktor Tsoy, 1984. Kozlov shot three films to choose a group portrait for his cover of Kino's album “Nachalnik Kamchatki” See chapter 6 more>> Photo: Hannelore Fobo

Kozlov’s photo archive has since proved to be an indispensable tool for my analysis of both Kozlov’s own work more >> and Leningrad‘s vibrant art and music scene – the Kino band, the New Artists, Sergey Kuryokhin's Pop Mekhanika performances, the New Composers, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, and others more >>. In this way, the discussion of the technical aspects of Kozlov’s photography completes another discussion – that of the artistic aspect of his photography, standing in the focus of my previous article from February 2021, “The Atlas of Ontology” more >>.

It follows from the subject matter that my text is quite specific with respect to technical details. Yet for Kozlov, mastering the technical aspects of photography was not an aim in itself: to him, it was important to achieve image sharpness – the easier, the better. It was only in 1990, when he worked with New York art-dealer Paul Judelson who brought him a Nikon N8008, a high-standard automatic single-lens reflex, that taking picture became more comfortable. Around the same time, in 1991, Kozlov changed to colour photography, and, consequently, stopped developing his own films. Furthermore, he also acquired a video camera. In this way, the period of the Leningrad 1980s remains a well-defined period in Evgenij Kozlov’s photography, too, although photographic images still had an impact on his later work. [2]