Lyrical images of the Magnum photographer's wanderings through the streets of Tokyo in the Nineties
Gueorgui Pinkhassov
"The power of your Muse lies in her meaninglessness. Even the style can enslave you if you don’t run away from it, otherwise you are doomed for repetition. The only thing that counts is curiosity. For me personally, this is what creativity is about. It testifies itself not in the fear of doing the same thing over again but rather in the urge of not going somewhere you have been before."
- Gueorgui Pinkhassov
Gueorgui Pinkhassov was born in Moscow in 1952. His interest in photography began while he was still at school. After studying cinematography at the VGIK (the Moscow Institute of Cinematography), he went on to work at the Mosfilm studio as a cameraman, then as a set photographer.
In 1978, Pinkhassov joined the Moscow Union of Graphic Arts and was awarded independent artist status. His work was noticed by the prominent Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, who invited Pinkhassov to work on the set of his film Stalker (1979). In the same year, some of his images were included in a group exhibition of Soviet photographers held in Paris, where they attracted attention.
Pinkhassov moved permanently to Paris in 1985. He worked for the international press, particularly for Geo, Grand Reportage and The New York Times Magazine, but covering events did not interest him. As his first book, Sightwalk, proves, Gueorgui Pinkhassov prefers to explore individual details, through reflections or particular kinds of light, often approaching abstraction.
In 2015, Pinkhassov released Un nouveau regard sur la mobilité urbaine (A New Look at Urban Mobility), a book of work made while on commission for RATP. For this, he captured people from Casablanca, Florence, London, Paris and Seoul on city transport. Sophistication Simplification, featuring Pinkhassov’s Instagram work, was published in 2017, reflecting on his practice and changes in the role of photography.
Pinkhassov became a full member of Magnum Photos in 1994 and a contributor in 2017.
