Dmitry Konradt: State and Time

Dmitry Konradt trained as a geologist and went on to become one of St Petersburg’s most famous photographers. After his celebrated black and white images of performers on and off stage at the legendary Leningrad Rock Club, he switched to cityscapes and began working in colour in the 1990s. In his work Konradt seems to recall his first profession and everything he photographs – crumbling courtyards, fire-walls, playgrounds, makeshift garages and broken tiles on stairwells – looks like the geological stratification of multi-coloured rocks. His spaces are always enclosed rather than panoramic, overlaid with layers of cultural fragments. His is a St Petersburg of calm and peace, where nothing changes apart from the seasons; it is a stage devoid of actors. It is also unexpectedly gentle and tender, with hope glimmering through its colour. Konradt is an artist with deep roots. His predecessors are American photographers of the 1970s (primarily William Eggleston) with their new colour photography depicting the crumbling signboards, abandoned barns and buzzing flies of Alabama and Georgia. Konradt is one of few artists who alter our focus. We start seeing common sights from a different angle; we notice what we once failed to see: a life that still bursts through in the Piranesian ruins.