Peterhof: Alexander Kitaev

16 June - 15 July 2006

Alexander Kitaev is a brilliant photoartist who has the major standmarks of Saint-Petersburg hand-eye. He has always understood himself as a historical person, which means that he lives and works under the light of history. He is not the mere citizen but the dweller and witness of historical places' life and the one of them is Peterhof. However Kitaev tells that some competent viewers are not ready to equate the photos that he took in the end of XX and the beginning of XXI with the historical image of the court city. Where is the gold of the Petrodvorets' emblem and crown, heat of Samson and lion, brass band and oriental varying of multilingual crowd? Istead of that is the flickering silver of photoprint  that consists of tree silhouette going out of mist, the statue that for a second seemd like a shoulder in the foliage or the backs of sculpture leaving their pedestrals, disappearing from the steps of the cascade at the same time when the water exuding fontains goes in the darkness. Kitaev takes pictures of the voices of light falling fountains and paints with a light damp suspension of fountain Peterhof air, plants pictures from the grain and the substance of his prints.

Ekaterina Andreeva