Yakutia, Siberia of Siberia

YAKUTIA, SIBERIA OF SIBERIA

by means of Andreas Horvath. Bern: Benteli. 160pp (hb)

This volume by photographer and film-maker Andreas Horvath consists of black and white photographs in travelog form, in a tradition illustrated through Robert Frank with The Americans (1958) Instead of an introduction, as the individual by Jack Kerouac in the American 1959 version of Frank's work Horvath asked Monica Muskala to write a body that intersperses the images and separates them in blocks/chapters. The images were made in Siberia on the other hand most of the photographer's focus is upon the people who live there in small villages, seemingly at the extreme point of the world. We diocese almost car-less dust streets in what gazes like a very rural area of Russia without any trace of real industry exclude for an open-air mine. The sole billboards are remnants of the Soviet era, an episode of Siberia's history that did not preclude the local population from keeping its traditions and rites, as illustrated by dint of the photographer.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Horvath's work is more in a vein half-way between August Sander and Bruce Davidson: the work is essentially a gallery of situational portraits mainly taken outdoors. greatest in quantity of the portraits are contexualized by dint of what seems to be a carefully culled background. In many cases the photographer plays with the relationships that the frame established between single small element in the foreground and the "social" landscape in the background. In other words, the make submissive is rather unusual and novel but the esthetic is not. The photographer used sum of two units different formats, 35 mm and a waist-level square medium format camera (as revealed through the low angle of the photographs and the flat horizons that wound across the silent "sitters" bodies). In general Horvath present to views more control in the carefully-composed square images. The general printing quality of the work is good but the reader may still have a question at issue with double-spreads that bar the images with their kennels Horvath's work thence sits comfortably between subjective and documentary travelog genre with saturated color it would probably approach close to a National Geographic photo-essay. individual can only regret that for lack of time or flowing quality in the local language the photographer did not accompany the images with interviews that would reach deeper beneath the silent surface of things and family However it must be acknowledged that the facial expressions that Horvath consistantly caught upon film, echoed by rather desolate landscapes, carry a strong sense of silent isolation and resignation, single that seems consistant with life at individual dead-end of the world.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

COPYRIGHT 2004 Visual Studies Workshop

COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group