Juvenile Detention

Artist: Sergey Bratkov
Title: Juvenile Detention
Media: Photograph
Dimension: 120 x 90 cm
Date: 2001

Russian-Ukrainian photographer Sergey Bratkov (born in 1960, Kharkov) considers himself firstly as an artist, even a sculptor. The artist seems to have turned to images from his Soviet childhood for inspiration, specifically photos of camping and other outdoorsy activities popular in the ’70s in magazines such as Ogonek, the Russian equivalent of Life magazine.

Over the past decade, the Ukrainian-born, Moscow-based artist has exhibited his documentary-style photographs throughout Europe. They are often portraits of young children exploring “forbidden” behaviors such as smoking cigarettes or sniffing glue. Photographer Boris Mikhailov, with whom Bratkov studied, introduced him to this kind of antihero with his own photographs of the destitute of the post-Soviet economy.

Bratkov's Statement: "One could say that I want to make painting from the photography. But really I want to do rather a sculpture which has a shape, volume, mass. The scupture is closer to the photo I think. I shoot really different. Traditionally the photography is emotional, especially amateur shots. But I do not shoot emotionally and my composition is also different. For example I almost don’t use the central focus. In addition the light and shadow are very important for the traditional perception of the photography but for me it doesn’t matter."

The image, Juvenile Detention, shows a young child, who is obviously rather rebellious. He has a broken arm, with a cast that reads,"X 2.03 OF UTES". All of this, with a lit cigarette being held between his lips.

I found this photograph to be quite intriguing, in a sense that I have never seen anything like this before. It is so unique because of how raw and how real it is. Although, no matter how real this photograph may be, I feel intense coldness, blandness, and uneasiness in it. The immense lack of emotion involved in this picture is what makes this picture absolutely brilliant; how Bratkov is capable of capturing such an emotionless, and cold image into something the viewer can look at, and feel uneasy about it. Art is something that is usually filled with emotion, and the fact that Bratkov can turn art into something like this, is just absolute sheer genius. This piece is fitting to the overall portrait theme of this exhibition because it is a portrait.

(Stefan Feather)