The main focus of the artist’s research in all of the featured projects is photography and the act of seeing itself. At first glance, photographs of cityscapes arranged in groups appear to be fully identical, however, as one looks closer, more differences begin to surface. Questions arise— «Is this one playground photographed over a period of time, or are these three different play- grounds?»; «How come a building has disappeared from this photograph?”—yet there is no answer. A set of elements turns out to be able to repeat itself in space over and over again in an almost unchanged form, other objects undergo complex transformations in time. There may be a gap of several meters between two adjacent images, others may be a decade apart. Time and place enter into a deceptive interaction.
Alexander Gronsky’s project, seemingly a complex puzzle in space and time, questions the perception of an image as a truthful document of ‘reality’—and at the same time deconstructs our automatisms in the perception of reality as such. The project makes it obvious that pho- tography, even being completely documentary and unmanipulated, devoid of symbolism and interpretation, deceives—but only if we are ready to be deceived.
Alexander Gronsky is an award-winning photographer based in Moscow, Russia. His works are part of collections of Statoil, Foam Museum, Aperture Foundation and Maison Européenne de la Photographie. Alexander Gronsky is a recipient of Foam Paul Huf Award, Aperture Port
folio Prize, World Press Photo, Linhof Young Photographer Award, Innovation Prize, a Kandin- sky Prize nominee, participant in the Sense of Place exhibition (BOZAR).
The works from the project have been exhibited in Paris (Polka Gallerie), Berlin (KVOST), Riga (ISSP Gallery), Tokyo (Yuka Tsuruno Gallery). The exhibition Time and Place will feature the project in Russia for the first time.
www.alexandergronsky.com
Press: TATLIN.RU