Documentary or Art?:

The work of Alexandre Vitkine

Born in Belin in 1910, Alexandre Vitkine's work is little known in the UK. An Electromechanical Engineer by profession and architectural photographer by nomenclature, his images are not what we tend to expect from photographs of the built environment as they defy all stereotypes. We look to architectural photography (at least in part) to give us 'straight', factual record shots, with perhaps the oddly taken viewpoint to add interest. We don't expect it to deny us detail or prevent us from appreciating the materials, textures and colours of the buildings. Yes Vitkine's photographs do just that, for they are silhouettes.

For this reason, he might better be referred to an an architectural artist rather than as a recorder. What is on the surface a genre dedicated to accurate portrayal (and that is not to leave unacknowledged the many and varied perspectives which are brought to bear in architectural photography) has, in Vitkine's work, takes on an aesthetic all of its own.

So an ostensibly documentary genre becomes art...

3 workmen on a pylon, Montereau. Alexandre Vitkine 1964

Cheminées Laminoir, Republic Steel, Cleveland, USA. Alexandre Vitkine 1965

Substation 'lese aqueducs'. Alexandre Vitkine 1970

click to enlarge

Norwich Cathedral from the quayside. Helen Williams 2004

URLs

All sites accessed and working 11/03/06

Hacklebury Fine Art

Telegraph review