The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography presents an exhibition from photographer Sasha Gusov, which will display a cycle of photographs of the Bolshoi Ballet Company. The exposition will include about 50 unique shots made from 1992 to 2016, from behind the scenes of the “big ballet”. After the publication of photographs of the Bolshoi in The British Journal of Photography, Gusov gained a reputation as a talented photographer.
Sasha Gusov’s photos perfectly convey the dynamics and expressiveness of ballet dance. There are among them beautiful staged portraits and fascinating, finely grasped shots of rehearsals and performances. Shot on film, “on the move” and without additional lighting, they captivate with their efficiency. “Photography is documentary – it just fixing something that is happening in a particular moment,” says the photographer.Nevertheless, he not only fixes the event, but also skillfully conveys the state of the caught instant. As Andrey Konchalovsky, the film director and great friend of Sasha, writes: “Gusov’s photographs are not therefore a reflection of life but a catalogue of those unrepeatable coincidences of circumstances in time and space which the man with the camera has chosen to ‘catch’”. In the sensual, catchy and often ironic photographs we see the author himself. “When I look at Gusov`s photographs, I feel that each of them is, to a certain degree, a self-portrait of the artist himself… His best images are even like a confession” notes Konchalovsky.
The Bolshoi Ballet – Sasha Gusov
28 June – 23 September, 2018
The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography
3 Bolotnaya embankment, bld. 1
Moscow, Russia, 119072
