Untitled (giraffe diptych)

Maker Bezukladnikov, Andrei (Russian, b. 1959)

Date1989

MediumGelatin silver print

Dimensionsimage: 4 1/8 in x 11 in; mat: 20 in x 16 in; paper: 15 11/16 in x 11 3/4 in

Credit LineGift of Jeffrey K. Mercer and Linda Glass

Object number2008:494

About the ArtistAndrei Bezukladnikov was born in the city of Perm in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1959. While serving in the armed forces in the early 1980s, he became a photographer for the army newspaper. He continued to pursue his interest in photography after the end of his duty, and in 1984 he became the photo-correspondent for a regional youth newspaper in Perm. He moved to Moscow in 1986, where he started working as a photographer for a theater journal and eventually began pursuing personal projects. Toward the end of the 1980s he began to exhibit his work, and it was around this time that he made a series of photographic diptychs. At first the works resemble stereoscopic images but in a number of cases the nearly identical images depict the same scene not from two slightly offset viewpoints, at two different moments. From one frame to the next, objects have moved slightly—as in a picture of a walking giraffe or another of a man blinking—conveying the passage of a moment.

Andrey Bezukladnikov completed a degree in photography in 1978. He has been involved in numerous photography publications, and is a member of the French photo-agency RAFO. In 1999, he created the website photographer.ru, dedicated to Russian photography. Bezukladnikov has exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions in les Rencontres d'Arles in Arles, France (1989); Yakut Gallery, Moscow, Russia (1994); and the Perm State Art Gallery, Perm, Russia (2009).