Fotograf Zone – Sasha Kurmaz – Oh Yeah, Yea, Yea, Yea!

Sasha Kurmaz works aptly with the aesthetics and topics typical of post- Soviet countries. In her artist’s book Oh Yeah, Yea, Yea, Yea!, she uses photographs downloaded from erotic websites. Infinite hours of dedicated editorial work were surely the foundations for series such as woman and Christmas tree, woman under tapestry, on tapestry, on car, in car, a series of vaginas from all sides, bodily fluids in various situations, etc. Just don’t tell me there are really virtually no men in the photos (if we leave out fragments). But that question really brings our attention away from the embodiment of exotic eroticism or erotic exoticism, which this rated-R book to put at the back of your library certainly is.

Text | Markéta Kinterová

Markéta Kinterová

is the artistic director of Fotograf.zone and the editor-in-chief of the online magazine Fotograf. Her practice focuses on artistic research related to public space. She teaches at the Department of Photography at FAMU, Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

Sasha Kurmaz

Sasha Kurmaz (b. 1986) is a Ukrainian visual artist working with photography, video, public space interventions, performative actions, and books. His works are closely connected to their social surroundings - exploring mechanisms of visual communication and revealing tensions between individuals and structures of power. He has carried out numerous solo projects in collaboration with leading art institutions in Ukraine, Poland, Germany and France. www.sashakurmaz.com

#35 living with humans

People reflect themselves through things that surround them. They are part of the animal kingdom, yet they do not include themselves into it. They separate their selves from the whole, and this gradual exclusion of the ego from the general context leads to the dualism of the relationship between the man and nature, not to the idea of the man as its consciously sociable part. In his lecture Too Human World, Philippe Descola states that the society does not own nature, but nature owns us. He speaks of the possibility of granting human rights to all kinds of living and inanimate nature, as do communities and natural peoples living in harmony with the landscape and living creatures. Images of animals have accompanied human culture since the times of cave paintings, but photography seems to be in a more complicated position of a modern technical tool. The keywords photography – of animals primarily evoke spectacular images of wild animals from exotic parts of the world, which do their protagonists disservice in the long run. The ambition of this issue is to suggest a different, non-linear view of the relationship between the man and fauna, trying to reflect its original nature, including the context of the impact of human activity.