Oleg Shagapov
NY Arts
Oleg Shagapov. Bodyart. 2000
Oleg Shagapov is an outstanding representative of young Petersburg photography, the artists who have emerged on St Petersburg’s art scene since the late 1990s. These photographers have woven a new, fresh perception of life into the Petersburg photography, creating works that are more dynamic, playful and frank than those of their senior fellow photographers. First of all, the instantaneous, predominantly color, photograph has superseded the elaborately arranged, impeccably staged frame for the simple reason that color photographs record the flow, flux and instantaneity of the exuberant city life. Shagapov’s subjects are multifarious: club life, cafes, youth squeezes, fashion- that is, the happy-go-lucky rhythm of life taken by surprise. Dancing disk-jockeys, body-art performed with the help of slides projected on the body, laughing tattooed girls wearing innumerable piercings, topless garments, semi-naked girls appearing painted in the acid light of night clubs and discos, multicolored smoke of cigarettes, artistic Bohemians- such are the main subjects of his works.
Yet his are not spectacular photographs procured by a reporter- the tenacious, sharp eye of the photographer grasps a certain drive of the event in the meaningless day-to-day business, a powerful, vital impulse. Shagapov’s personages just live, they do not emote; they are devoid of violent outbursts, tragic significance, pain. There is nothing permanent, no regret about the loss, no reflecting about the past and/or wasted time, everything is but a half-shade, a penumbra, a splotch of light, a flash, a movement smeared by a glow. Nevertheless, his images do not appear as an apologia of glossy blue-sky hedonism. There is a specific middle ground. They look like stills from motion pictures; bright, clip-like twinkling of color spots testify to the fortuitous, fragmentary nature of the fixed motif, which is incomplete in principle, yet firmly rooted in another grand subject, life.
Color in Shagapov’s photographs deserves special attention. He prefers the brightest, ripest colors, subjugating the surrounding scene to highlight his subject. His avidity is striking with great enthusiasm he many pictures on various subjects. His eye seems to capture everything that comes his way: drops of rain on the glass, reflections in puddles, notices and advertisements on walls, a red postbox and many other beautiful odds and ends. By extracting them from the blurred visual background and thus giving them another, effigial, life, Shagapov again proves an old truth: there are no interesting or boring subjects, there is the artist?s view which creates them by right of choice and thus restores their innate value.
Courtesy of www.russkialbum.ru
