</How A Young Fashion Photographer Reinterpreted Her father's Iconic Photographs Of 1991 August Coup>
author: Marusia Makhmutova
ODRA KICK-STARTS ITS NEW #POST-SOVIET COLUMN WITH AN ESSAY ON THE 1991 SOVIET COUP D'ÉTAT ATTEMPT BY MARUSIA MAKHMUTOVA, A FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER AND COLLAGE ARTIST, WHO HAS WORKED WITH GQ, ESQUIRE, GLAMOUR AND MARIE CLAIRE ITALY.
Also known as the August Coup, this historic event has solidified the term of post-Soviet as it has subsequently led to the dissolution of the USSR. Back then, a group of military and civilian officials tried to unseat USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev over his democratic reforms, which they feared would result in independence of the Soviet republics. By coincidence, Marusia’s father, photographer Konstantin Makhmutov was in Moscow at the time and captured the historic events as they unfolded.
30 years later, Konstantin’s photographs became part of an exhibition at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center, while Marusia was asked by GQ Russia magazine to reinterpret those images. Below Makhmutova tells a story of how she felt when she revisited the photos taken by her father.
Marusia Makhmutova's collages for GQ magazine
I’m not exactly aware where this story begins, just sometime long before I was born. Whether it was my father’s random trip to Moscow right in the middle of the coup d’état in 1991, the world changing or when the curious boy took camera in his hands for the first time.
Let me introduce you my father: Konstantin Makhumtov, the exceptional talent, which he buried somewhere deep down in himself, history helped. You know it probably better than me. Nineties, how they affected post-soviet countries, could one make any money by photography?
So I guess the dreams were put on a shelf next to the pile of negatives (thank you, grandma, for saving them). Plus, I was born, don’t know if it makes me partly responsible for his creative career ending, probably not, but I’ll leave this to my therapist.
So I guess the dreams were put on a shelf next to the pile of negatives (thank you, grandma, for saving them). Plus, I was born, don’t know if it makes me partly responsible for his creative career ending, probably not, but I’ll leave this to my therapist.
And that’s where I fast-forward to 30 years later, with me becoming a professional photographer and collage artist. Quite expected of me, right? What one could await the girl to be, when she was presented with her first camera on her 16th birthday?
So, I found them. Those negatives, that shelf, 30 years later. I was up in arms about the sole fact of him leaving the past like this. The treasure, which been waiting for me, I believe.
I did what I couldn’t help but do: showed this treasure to the world. Fait accompli, as I would later think, when a friend of mine payed attention to the fact that father allowed me to do all of that. (I never asked, I just knew it would be done for therapeutic purposes).
I did what I couldn’t help but do: showed this treasure to the world. Fait accompli, as I would later think, when a friend of mine payed attention to the fact that father allowed me to do all of that. (I never asked, I just knew it would be done for therapeutic purposes).
And that’s when the series of interesting events followed. Generous workers of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center got involved in dad’s solo exhibition. One of the biggest Russian news agency TASS and prominent influencer Xenia Sobchak got interested in photo archive, while prodigious GQ art director Dmitriy Gienko has truly believed in me and asked to make a project for the magazine.
2021, we are in Moscow now, if I may ask you to follow me. June, it’s hot out here, and I’m sweaty and ready with the camera on my way to the Russian White House. Already spent half a year examining photos of coup d’état, a shocking revelation appeared: I’ve never been there, never seen Krasnopresnenskaya embankment with my own eyes. Could you imagine stepping into the painting? I think I’ve seen it in some movie. What was this feeling, something sublime. My body wanted to cry, but I refused to obey, got my act together. So I took a couple of pictures, same angles my father did 30 years ago, used the color prints for the collages later.
As I haven’t existed in 1991 yet, my goal was to redefine these pictures through the eyes of a child, who obviously haven’t seen the event itself, but came to know it through the historical sources. But which sources one should believe in? Even now. Especially now. That’s why the first thing I did was to add a simple line next to the photo of the White House — are they bad or good? “We haven’t even asked this type of questions back then, everything seemed unambiguous” - one woman would tell me later. I bought a tank, toy tank, carefully examining and picking the tracks. I covered them with red paint and pressed against the collages — the idea I still consider quite brilliant.
It is interesting to note that father shot a picture of three roses put down the barrel of the tank on the 20th of August. Three people got killed on the 21st. I used the picture of kids, one of them smoking — the day I found out that it’s prohibited to print such things in Russia. One probably would never know this, but, alas, a 12ish kid was smoking. And, speaking of kids, the soldiers on the pictures, have you seen them? Barely of age. And accurately does history tend to repeat itself, I observe it now. Have this country got rid of profound consequences or just added new to the pile?
It is interesting to note that father shot a picture of three roses put down the barrel of the tank on the 20th of August. Three people got killed on the 21st. I used the picture of kids, one of them smoking — the day I found out that it’s prohibited to print such things in Russia. One probably would never know this, but, alas, a 12ish kid was smoking. And, speaking of kids, the soldiers on the pictures, have you seen them? Barely of age. And accurately does history tend to repeat itself, I observe it now. Have this country got rid of profound consequences or just added new to the pile?
Dad, you took pictures of USSR and now you live in Russia, who would have thought?
It is interesting to note that father shot a picture of three roses put down the barrel of the tank on the 20th of August. Three people got killed on the 21st. I used the picture of kids, one of them smoking — the day I found out that it’s prohibited to print such things in Russia. One probably would never know this, but, alas, a 12ish kid was smoking. And, speaking of kids, the soldiers on the pictures, have you seen them? Barely of age. And accurately does history tend to repeat itself, I observe it now. Have this country got rid of profound consequences or just added new to the pile?
Dad, you took pictures of USSR and now you live in Russia, who would have thought?
Konstantin Makhumtov. Gallery