Art project by Andrei Gordasevich "Games over time"

On October 4, at 19:00, the Classic Games exhibition opens with the exhibition “Games with Time” - an art project by Andrei Gordasevich about trying to hide time by reconstructing the era of the Napoleonic Wars. In 2014-2017, Andrei filmed the “backstage” of reconstruction as a space for games over time. The exposition will feature photographs of Andrei, as well as the drawings of an eyewitness to the events of 1812, equestrian grenadier Noirot, who accidentally fell into his hands. The exhibition runs until December 4th.

Four of a kind infantry line up to defend against cavalry

The project was presented as online art at the festival “Fashion and Style in Photography - 2017” and became known thanks to the site http://time.gordasevich.ru, where the story of the reconstruction is presented as a visual play about the intersection of times. Over time, playing hide and seek is easy on a theatrical battlefield, but difficult at home, as seen when shooting behind the scenes: in some frames the time is “cleared”, and in others it is “infected” with modern objects. A photographer looks for scenes in modern reconstruction that resemble the outline of Noirot.

The construction of French rangers near the village of Doronino

Andrey about the project: “In any reconstruction, people play over time. What interests me primarily is not the historical background of the game, but the attempt to move to a different time and space. Could this attempt be successful and to what extent?.. In fact, reconstruction is a particular example of creating a myth, an imaginary world, and there are many such attempts, each of them consists of life, although not everyone goes with a tent to the Borodino field. In a word, the reconstruction of the Battle of Borodino is material, and the theme is the mythology of the time. Noirot, whose drawings I use in the project, is a chronicler of everyday life, a witness to what in later times would have been documented with a camera. Therefore, I kind of look for in the modern reconstruction of those motives that Noirot painted as a witness of the time - and remove them. Of course, not quite linear, but there is a roll call. For me, a man from the public who takes riders off the phone is also part of the reconstruction. Because it is located just at the intersection of times. And cigarettes prohibited in the camps, too. And plastic cans of water. And cars. Moreover, the black-and-white execution of the project helps these details to quietly creep into the fabric of the story and hide. It seems that everything is almost the same as in Noirot’s drawings, but no… In general, the “photographer that stops time” is a metaphor, and it is very inaccurate. Photography can only help remember something from a while. Something, in fact, is rather vague and serving as material for imagination. Your time is your feeling of the surrounding space. The most difficult thing is to feel the time in which you yourself live. Because it is close. There’s nowhere to retreat, but not close to focus. ”

Andrey Gordasevich is engaged in visual projects based on the shooting of everyday life, documentary and street photography. These stories come in the form of books (the album "Intersections"), and more recently, in the form of online-art, in the form of long-read sites. For more than 10 years, Andrei worked exclusively with black and white film, since 2012 he has made a number of projects in color, including Havana: Portraits on the Road, Diary from Pushkar, Intersections, and Fast Gold. His projects “Intersections” and “Fast Gold” (www.quickgold.ru) received a number of international awards. Andrey’s works are in the collection of MAMM and in private collections in Russia and abroad.