Anna Goffman: I always followed my inner impulses. Megastars What is your inspiration?

Soon the creative space “KvARTira” will host Anya Goffman’s personal exhibition with the intriguing title “Undress Katya for me.” In anticipation of this event, Falovers spoke with the fashion photographer about creativity, inspiration and uncompromising beauty in the frame.

Photographer Anna Goffman's fashion journey began just a few years ago. However, along the way, a lot of interesting things happened to Anna: collaboration with the Spanish magazines Verano and Magazine Fuera de Serie, work with St. Petersburg designers Olga Malyarova, Vladislav Aksenov, Natalya Mekler, Irina Tantsurina and participation in the Biennale of Russian Photography Paris’20-09.

Anna's creativity amazes with its extreme emotionality. The photographer does not follow the established stereotypes of fashion photography - each frame refers to a long-forgotten (in this type of creativity) theatricality, where there is poetry and painting, expression and sensuality, where every movement of the model is choreographed and carefully thought out, where there is nothing vague and random...

Anya, why such a strange name for the exhibition?

This phrase was once said by an acquaintance of mine who was present at an advertising shoot. There was no erotic overtones in it. But at the moment when he said it, I realized that the very process of actions and episodes called “Undress Katya for me” could well serve as the plot of my personal exhibition.

And what will it be about?

I plan to bring some creative conclusion to the exhibition. The photographs presented there are portraits of people close to me. In essence, this will be an exhibition about friends and for friends. To tell the truth, I myself really want to look at my own work after a while and in a large format.(Smiles).

What happened before the exhibition?

The beginning of a creative journey. It took me a long time to see him, but as soon as I picked up the camera, I immediately found myself and my dream came true.

There is always a theatricality to your photographs. Moreover, it is established as an unconditional value of your worldview. With such a perception of life, is it difficult to find customers?

I’ll say more: it’s not easy for me to live with this. It would be much easier if I just photographed beautiful models against a beautiful background. But I can only get complete creative satisfaction from complex theatrical shooting.

It is difficult to find like-minded customers - in pursuit of commercialization, people strive to simplify the language of photography. However, at the same time, many people love all these “thread-like clouds at a decorative sunset.”

And how, in this case, to maintain a balance between the artistic value of the photo and its commercial component?

I really believe that fashion photography needs theater, that theatrical photography will sell the thing. The emasculated photographs have become boring. And the industry needs something that will stop the consumer’s gaze for a long time. In the end, there is always a place for a simple look book, shot according to the classical canons of advertising photography. But should photographs be faceless pictures? - that’s the question.

Well, what about a compromise?

I am ready to make some concessions to the customer, but I am not ready to be dishonest towards myself.

So, after all, painting and Shakespearean dramas are in the frame?

What is your inspiration?

It has no form, no quality... I can be inspired by absolutely anything: movements, sounds. Yes, music plunges me into some kind of meditative state, from which I emerge with a ready-made idea.

And what happens to you at that moment when you catch inspiration by the tail?

I, like Tarantino’s Colonel Hans Landa, say directly: “bingo!”(Laughs).

How much time passes between the ripening of an idea and its implementation?

ABOUT! I had a case when a year passed. I agree to wait if necessary. Naturally, when I come up with something, I immediately want to implement it, even if not the next day, but within a week. After all, I’m not the only one who needs to prepare. The hero of the shooting must also feel the idea, experience important moments, feel an internal click, after which he will tell me: “I’m ready, shoot.”

By the way, I was always wondering what is the correct way to say: photo session or photography?

Shooting. This is a shoot for me. By no means a photo shoot - I mean in this concept a short fragment of time when you simply photograph a model in various poses. For me, there is always a serious and meaningful process going on, which requires full dedication from me and all its participants.

How do you get people to complete their tasks? After all, as I understand, you often work with unprofessional models.

At first it seemed to me that I was doing some terrible things: “getting into” a person, torturing him, manipulating him. But over time, I began to notice that people were imbued with the mood of the shooting without my pressure on their consciousness. What happens is that at some point they become fully involved in the plan and release the emotions I need.

How long does your filming last?

From three to fifteen hours.

Until fifteen?

Yes. In this regard, I absolutely agree with Diane Arbus. She said that she did not believe the photographer who said that he could make a portrait in half an hour. But emotionally, for me personally, it makes no difference how long I shoot: three hours, five, twelve... After shooting, the entire energy reserve disappears.

And how do you replenish your resources in this case?

I sleep and dream.(Smiles).

Anya, how do you feel about criticism?

If they say outright nasty things to me, I do not react in any way, but I am ready for constructive criticism from authoritative people.

In this case, whose opinion is authoritative for you?

I will be happy to listen to the assessment from my loved ones, and my dad’s opinion is especially significant for me, from the teachers of the Academy of Arts, from best friend– curator of the Yekaterinburg Museum modern photography. Their words always contain validity, constructiveness and, most importantly, meaning.

Are you part of the local photography scene?

No. It’s probably not a good thing to say now, but I don’t need these people.

What about exchange?

Knowledge, moods, emotions, energies?

If I need technical knowledge, I will draw them from the books of classical photographers: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton. If I suddenly need innovations, I will open last number Italian Vogue.

Do you have, let's say,must-have a fashion photographer: work there, shoot for something?

It seems to me that a must-have for any fashion photographer is Vogue magazine.

What are your plans for the future?

Film and travel.

What three words would you use to describe photographer Anna Goffman?

Which good question! Let me think... A fanatical little fellow, savoring life with small sips of beauty. It seems I couldn’t fit it into three words.

You can get acquainted with Anna's work here: vk.com/annagofman

As Anna herself says about herself: “I always dreamed of creating Worlds...”. And Worlds are created: there are many of them and they are different, like the personalities of the models with which she populates them, but inevitably strong and beautiful.

Sometimes it’s even difficult to call it all photography. It is always history, narrative, action, drama, farce, grotesque, game. A theater in which Anna Goffman is a photographer, an artist, a screenwriter, a director, and a cameraman all rolled into one. The filming scripts written by her, with seriously worked out details, scenery, lighting and even the soundtrack, are reminiscent of the scripts of the best examples of world cinema.

An art history education from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, work in interior design and experience in fashion photography allow Anna to feel free to use any historical and aesthetic style chosen for filming. And excellent artistic taste, along with extraordinary courage and a subtle sense of humor, is to create a mix of stylistic and decorative elements when creating your own amazing, unique and unusual worlds.

There is nothing in the work of this young photographer that one would expect from a private photo shoot; there is not a single female image or portrait that could be called simply “beautiful”. Because Anna’s photographs are art, real and real. The images she creates are very individual, however, like any really good artist, her style is already recognizable. Such recognition is surprising for a young master. Nevertheless, this speaks of great and deep talent.

The growing professional success that accompanies the creative ambitions of this incredibly talented girl, her amazing ability in our commercialized society not to be led by bad taste and market conditions, brought her to the highest international level.

Radda Shchukina
Artist, art critic

Exhibitions and nominations

2010 - Anna's first personal exhibition, still as an artist, in Paris at the Laurent Godard gallery.
2013 - photographs from the “Ballet” series were purchased for the fund of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
2014 - title the best photographer Russia (according to IPA) and a nomination for the International Photographer of the Year award in New York. As part of the IPA exhibition, her works were exhibited at the FotoLoft gallery in Moscow and at Carnegie Hall in New York.
2014 - photographs of Anna Goffman were exhibited at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg as part of the III Biennale of Contemporary Photography.
2015 - personal exhibition at the Sky Lounge restaurant (Building of the Russian Academy of Sciences) in Moscow.
2015 - title of finalist in one of the most prestigious international awards in the field contemporary art"Arte Laguna Prize". Exhibition in Venice at the Arsenale di Venezia.
2015 - awarded the incentive prize “Prix de la Photographie, Paris” (Px3) of the competition “The WHITE Theme Competition”.
2016 - participation in the Glo’Art Art Residence, Belgium.
2016 - exhibition as part of the Nord Art Biennale, Germany.
2016 - exhibition at the Royal College of Art, UK, London.
2017 - exhibition as part of the Nord Art Biennale, Germany.
2017 - group exhibition of the winners in the gallery at Winzavod, Moscow, Russia.
2017 - 2nd place in the category " Fine art» International Photography Awards, Russia.
2018 - participation in the group exhibition “Winter”. “Gallery on Gogolevsky”, Moscow, Russia.
2018 - participation in the group exhibition “Salt”. Gallery of the studio "Sol", St. Petersburg, Russia.
2019 - became a member of the Federation of European Photographers (FEP).
2019 - participation in the art residence “Glo’art”, exhibition there. Lanaken, Belgium.
2019 - personal exhibition of the project " New Earth" Mega Dybenko, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Performers:

Anna Goffman: vocals, percussion
Gennady Lavrentyev: oud, guitar, percussion
Kirill Parenchuk: soprano saxophone, percussion
Kirill Rossolimo - percussion
Maria Ride - percussion, dance

Exactly a year ago, a musical group began performing, giving a concert in the Indian club “Hukkah”, and recently Anna Hoffman’s group can be heard more and more often in Moscow. They were not the first to start performing Sephardi (Spanish Jews) songs, but, unlike many, they do not strive to “modernize” ancient melodies. The group members collect Sephardic songs heard in the Middle Ages and restore the original traditions, slightly adapting them for today's listeners.

Anna Hoffman sings not just Sephardic songs, the main genre is romance, in the sense in which it originally appeared - a poetic story turning into a ballad. In general, the term “romance” itself arose in the Spanish Middle Ages and originally denoted a secular song in Spanish (“Roman”, and not in Latin, accepted in church chants). The romances performed by the group sound in the language in which they were created - in Ladino, the Jewish-Spanish language of the Sephardim. The lyrics are naive and simple-minded, like any ballads of those times. They sing about tears, which, of course, look like pearls, about a loved one who left, and about love, which is happiness and misfortune.