«The Cold fixation»: an interview with artist Marat Dilman

Marat Dilman represents a new generation of artists who work with a medium of conceptual photography. His works reflect transformation processes and our young state's attempts to nation-building, that emerged on the ruins of the Soviet Union. Unlike the artists of the past generation, Marat does not use an identity search strategy, but rather goes from the opposite and generates a new cultural code, a modernized and utopian reality, while remaining in the genre of documentary photography. Research is the basis of Dillman's artistic practice: he travels around Kazakhstan to find sources for his work and tracks current events where traditional culture meets modernity, not as humor but as a complex space of new meanings and different cultural layers. In relation to his first solo exhibition “Code Q“ in Saparlas Gallery (Almaty), we talked with Marat about his sense of new Kazakh reality and personal artistic approaches.

You work in the genre of documentary photography, but your methods are fundamentally different from those of Cartier-Bresson's classic "decisive moment". Can you say how do you produce your reality? How can you describe your approach?

Honestly, I usually don't think about what genre I work in, whether it's documentary photography or staged. Rarely, I make
staged photography, but now I'm not so invested in creating shots. The searching process is more interesting to me, even internet surfing becomes supreme. 

I often look for various events, where Kazakh culture can meet modern times, therefore I have to follow announcements carefully. I also google keywords, such as "robot Kazakhstan", and find a lot of interesting information: projects of students, various news, publications and pages on social media. 

For example, my work with a robot in a traditional Kazakh hat “taqiya”, emerged from news about school students from Taldykorgan who created a teacher robot and went with him to a robotics design competition somewhere in Europe. I liked the way they decided to put on the taqiya, someone from the jury suggested "humanizing" the robot.

Many pictures have interesting stories that often remain behind the scenes. For example, a building in the form of a batyr (hero) helmet is a hospital where people are treated with traditional medicine, owned by a healer who is located in Kaskelen. I learnt about it also from the news, went there and took a picture of the facade. 

I know that recently you went on a trip around Kazakhstan, tell me about your experience?

I started my trip in Aktau, I found out that albino girl lives there and she works in a model agency, so it was not difficult to organize the photoshoot. The trip was very dynamic, took me two weeks. After Aktau I traveled to the south, and every day from dawn to dusk I walked, the goal was to capture how the process of this trend – the new Kazakhstani reality formation is developing in the regions.

Aktau is becoming a touristic place, and each city is in the process of creating a new urban identity, it affects the culture and visual aesthetics of the cities.

I searched a lot for information about what is happening in each city; the south of Kazakhstan is interesting with its colors and has a desire to develop and respond to the requirements of the time, sometimes it produces such interesting combinations as “Tiktokhana” at an “anti café” in Zhanaozen.  

Do you have a certain set of rules, the principles that you follow while choosing a subject for your photography?

I try not to choose obvious compositions, I look for something obscure, so I don't take a lot of extra shots, on average I only take 10 photos per year. 

How do you imagine Kazakhstan in the future, for example, Kazakhstan in the desired year of 2050?

I think about the future with curiosity, but I cannot imagine it. I capture the today, in which I try to find predictions of the future. 

Direct flash, pure colors, closed composition - your photos have a unique style; please tell me how you formed it? 

The reception of such impulsive light reflects the idea of “cold fixation”, direct gaze, and absence of lights and shades. The idea is to show the object as it is, without using any stylistic techniques. 

If I draw parallels with modern painting, then your works remind me of such genre as Superflat, for example, David Hockney's or Takashi Murakami's works. All your photos, even those which have perspective, look quite flat. Is it a conscious or intuitive decision in your practice? 

I am very fond of illustrations and I like the “flat” style. There is a painter Patrick Caulfield who was very influential in my early works, he painted still-lifes only with flat colors. I think in all the digital works, including advertising, objects look very flat, I think this kind of visual characterizes our time. 

I made paintings and drawings until I was 16 years old, photography for me is a continuation of visual arts. I think it's not about a certain technique or whether you have a brush or a camera, but about a vision: how you feel the time surrounding the reality, its language and changes, how carefully you observe, highlight some moments.

Tell us about your future projects, or perhaps plans for the nearest time?

I would like to travel to neighboring countries like Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan - we have many commonalities. I think these countries are experiencing the same cultural processes as we are.

At some point, all Kazakh artists are asked a question related to identity, this question has already become pesky, but as it seems to me it's still relevant. What is this new Kazakh identity for you? 

I think that our identity is largely constructed by designers and creators, in some way it’s a formation project of a nationality and its configuration. At the moment we are all immersed into the reality of this project and observe the processes of its creation.