24/24: Carl de Keyzer - ZONA

Carl de Keyzer was born in 1958 in Belgium, and is a photographer, working as a freelance since 1982. He was the co-founder and co-director of the gallery XYZ – Photography from 1982 to 1989. He lectured in photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent from 1982- 89. In 1995 he lectured at the Higher Institute of the Arts in Antwerp, and in 2002 – at the School of Decorative Arts in Paris. In 1990 he was nominated for, and in 1994 was accepted for membership of the Magnum photographic agency. More than 40 personal and 90 group exhibitions feature in De Keyser’s artistic biography.

http://www.carldekeyzer.com

“Karl de Keyser shot photographs in 40 out of the 135 corrective labour camps of Krasnoyarsk Region. He shot the life of the prisoners, and so a lot of camp architecture can be seen in his pictures. It must be said at once: the architecture of Zek is just the same as the architecture of Zhek [The word for Soviet prisoner, and the acronym for the Soviet housing maintenance authority]. There is the same asphalt, the same wooden huts, flowerbeds, railings, fences, iron-bound doors, light green and pale blue, ochre and red lead, paintings in Levitan’s style, sculpture in Tsereteli’s, recreation rooms and sports grounds. This is not Russian constructivism, nor is it Soviet classicism, but one cannot say that there is absolutely no style. It is architecture without ambition and traditions, but dreamy and educational. This is the Sun City of the municipal housing manager who has never read the treatise of Tommazo Campanella, and does not know who Ivan Leonidov is. Evidently Karl de Keyser photographed the Zone in that manner. Like a Fuji paradise. It is attractively coloured, but joyless. We must note that everyone living in this heavenly place is all the same. Like holes in a drawn decoration. If you change the faces, the decoration stays exactly the same. And we will never be free of this.” (Yu. Avvakumov)