Fuel
27 April - 16 June 2012
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| Sergei Vasiliev
Print No. 20
Giclée print on archival fine art paper
22,6 x 32,4 cm
30,5 x 40,6 cm framed
© Sergei Vasiliev / FUEL |
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FUEL
Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia
27 April - 16 June 2012
GALLERY WEEKEND BERLIN (April 27 - 29)
Galerie Max Hetzler is pleased to present the exhibition Russian
Criminal Tattoos featuring 120 sheets of drawings selected from the
archive of the original tattoo drawings by Danzig Baldaev, published in
the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volumes I-III (FUEL
Publishing, 2003-2008). They represent the broad range of themes
contained in the language of Russian tattoos, from the political to the
pornographic. Displayed in groups of fifteen in eight large museum
frames, each sheet is accompanied by a detailed translation and
information regarding the location, as supplied by Baldaev. Between
1948-1986, during his career as a prison guard, Baldaev made over 3,000
drawings of tattoos. They were his gateway into a secret world in which
he acted as ethnographer, recording the rituals of a closed society. The
icons and tribal languages he documented are artful, distasteful,
sexually explicit and provocative, reflecting as they do the lives,
status and traditions of the convicts that wore them. Baldaev made
comprehensive notes about each tattoo, which he then carefully
reproduced in his tiny St. Petersburg flat. The resulting exquisitely
detailed ink drawings are accompanied with his handwritten notes and
signature on the reverse, the paper is yellowed with age, and carries
Baldaev’s stamp, giving the drawings a visceral temporality – almost
like skin.
In 2009 Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell (FUEL) purchased the entire
archive of 739 original sheets of tattoo drawings from Baldaev’s widow.
Accompanying the drawings are 32 photographs by Sergei Vasiliev, taken
between 1989-1993 in prisons and reform settlements across Chelyabinsk,
Nizhny Tagil, Perm and St. Petersburg. They act as an important
counterpart to Baldaev’s drawings, providing photographic evidence of
their authenticity, and allowing us a glimpse into this compelling and
extraordinary world. In these incredible images the nameless bodies of
criminals act as both a text and mirror, reflecting and preserving the
ever-changing folklore of the Russian criminal underworld.
Danzig Baldaev was born in 1925 in Ulan-Ude, Buryatiya, Russia. The son
of an ‘enemy of the people’, he was subject to repression in communist
Russia and sent to an orphanage for children of political prisoners.
After serving in the army in World War II, he moved to Leningrad in 1948
and was ordered by the NKVD to work as a warden in ‘Kresty’ – an
infamous Leningrad prison – where he started drawing the tattoos of
criminals. His collection of tattoos were recorded in different
reformatory settlements for criminals across the former USSR. He died in
2005.
Sergei Vasiliev was born in 1936 in the Chuvash region of Russia. He was
a staff photographer for the newspaper Vecherny Chelyabinsk for over
thirty years. He has received many honours including International
Master of Press Photography from the International Organization of Photo
Journalists (Prague, 1985), Honoured Worker of Arts of Russia and the
Golden Eye Prize. His work has been exhibited internationally and is
held in numerous museum collections.
Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell founded FUEL Design & Publishing in 1991.
www.maxhetzler.com
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