SERGEI BODROV
Born in 1959, Antwerp, Belgium, based in Mexico City.
At the beginning Gasparian’s work was determined by the Pictorialist aesthetic, the still life, the naïve subjects of the time, but few years later, he noticed that the photography was much more than the bucolic repetition which reminded a lot the academy of fine arts and he started to experiment.
His use of physical objects as filters anticipates the use of filters attached to the camera lens and, more recently, to the way contemporary photographers use
filters available in digital technology. Throughout his twenty-year career Gasparian made work both in the studio and on the street, showing his versatility and will to experiment.
He often used glass and other studio props to produce manipulated effects, or complicated studio setups to suggest illusions of scale and depth of field. Gasparian also practiced street photography, making work in both São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro as well as in post-war Europe.
He was a member of several experimental photo clubs in Brazil throughout his career, in the 1950s Gasparian formed the so-called ‘Group of Six’, a collective of photographers engaged with furthering discussions around photography and photographic technique, aiming to push the medium further towards abstract and modernist aesthetics.
2016: In The Studio, Tate Modern, London; Modern Forever, organized by Itaú Cultural – Brasilia; 2015: Acqua#6 Project Giorgio Armani, Paris Photo, Paris; Portraits: The Last Headline, Galeria Bergamin, São Paulo, Brazil; Adventures of the Black Square, Abstract Art and Society 1915-2015, Whitechapel Gallery,
London; 2014: The Modern Lens - Internacional Photography and the Tate Collection, Tate St. Ives, England; Subjektive Fotografie 2, Kicken Gallery - Berlin, Germany; Urbes Mutantes- Fotografia Latinoamericana 1941 - 2012, ICP International Center of Photography - New York, U.S.A.
The Voice, 2008 Russia, 16mm, colour, 3 min. original language: Russian
episode from the film Stories
on Human Rights, An ART for The World production, Geneva
