Danila Tkachenko - Photographs London Wednesday, November 1, 2017 | Phillips

Photographs

London Auction 2 November 2017

  • Exhibited

    Danila Tkachenko, Restricted Areas, Rencontres D’Arles,Chapelle Saint-Martin du Méjan, Arles, 4 July - 28 August 2016
    Danila Tkachenko: Restricted Areas, Fotogalerie Friedrichshain, Berlin, 15 September - 29 October 2016
    For another

  • Literature

    D. Tkachenko, Restricted Areas, Stockport: Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2016, n.p.

  • Catalogue Essay

    ‘What’s interesting for me is to witness what remains after the progress has ground to a halt.’
    Danila Tkachenko

    Over three winters between 2013 and 2015, Danila Tkachenko journeyed into the snowy depth of Russia, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan, covering more than 15,000 miles to photograph the remains of 33 abandoned Soviet projects. Restricted Areas takes its name from the ‘secret cities’ the USSR established for sensitive military projects. These ‘cities’ were top secret locations, closed to all outsiders and often not appearing in public records or on maps. Adopting a minimalist aesthetic and presenting these Cold War ruins against the bleak white backdrop of winter, Tkachenko creates surreal images left over from another time and place.

    The present triptych presents three Soviet relics. On the left is the only surviving prototype of the VVAT 14 airplane – an amphibian vehicle, designed in the 1970s, with vertical take-off, able to fly low over the sea and survey or attack US submarines. The futuristic architecture in the centre is the House-Monument of the Bulgarian Communist Party, constructed in the late 1970s to commemorate the accomplishments of Dimitar Blagoev, the founder of Bulgarian socialism. On the right is the world’s largest diesel submarine, a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine deployed by the Soviet Navy in the 1980s, now landlocked in the Samara region. Together, these three photographs capture the dramatic remains of a collapsed civilization.

    Tkachenko is a visual artist working in the field of documentary photography. In 2015, he was awarded Burn Magazine's Emerging Photography Fund and was selected for Foam Talent for this body of work. He also received the European Publishers Award for Photography, which led to the series being exhibited at the Rencontres d'Arles in 2016. Other works from the series are in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and SpallArt.

ULTIMATE

46

Danila Tkachenko

Restricted Areas

2013-2015
Unique archival pigment triptych, each flush-mounted.
Each image/sheet:72 x 90 cm (28 3/8 x 35 3/8 in.)
Each frame: 77 x 95 cm (30 3/8 x 37 3/8 in.)
Signed, dated in ink, printed title, date and number AP1 on a Certificate of Authenticity accompanying the work.

This work is unique. Each print is AP1 from the sold-out edition of 6 + 1 AP. Each image is sold out in all sizes and editions.

Estimate
£30,000 - 50,000 ‡

Sold for £75,000

Contact Specialist
Genevieve Janvrin
Co-Head of Photographs, Europe
+44 20 7901 7996

Yuka Yamaji
Co-Head of Photographs, Europe
+44 20 7318 4098

Photographs

London Auction 2 November 2017