A large-scale exhibition by the renowned St. Petersburg photojournalist
A large-scale exhibition by the renowned St. Petersburg photojournalist Sergei Alexeevich Kompanichenko opens at the State Museum and Exhibition Centre ROSPHOTO.
More than 140 black-and-white author’s prints reflect over fifty years of history — including reportage from the transformative 1980s and 1990s, portraits of politicians and cultural figures, and photo essays documenting unique events.
Yet the main protagonist of Sergei Kompanichenko’s work is the city itself.
The duality expressed in the exhibition’s title is no coincidence: it reveals the different directions within the artist’s creative vision.
His photographs portray Leningrad, the city of significant public events and historical change, and St. Petersburg, the city of architecture and bridges, of memory and time.
Sergei Kompanichenko is a member of the board of the St. Petersburg branch of the Union of Journalists of Russia and head of the photography section of the St. Petersburg Creative Union of Artists. He graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineering and worked for fourteen years in the professional field, specializing in bridge and tunnel constriction. Although he had been passionate about photography since childhood, he took on a role of a photographer only in 1990, becoming a staff photojournalist for the Novosti Press Agency. He is the author of several photo albums, including “Valaam, Petersburg Through the Century”, and “St. Petersburg in a Necklace of Bridges”, among others. Sergei Alexeevich is a three-time laureate of the Union of Journalists of Russia Award, was named Best Photojournalist of St. Petersburg (1995), and received Russia’s highest national photojournalism honor, the Golden Eye of Russia Award (2006).
Two main themes can be distinguished in Sergei Kompanichenko’s work, different in subject matter and creative approach. One is photo reportage, capturing historic moments and unique events, while also revealing the personalities of those portrayed. The other one is devoted to St. Petersburg itself. For many years, Sergei Alexeevich has been creating an artistic image of the city, taking photographs from complex, sometimes even dangerous angles, seeking particular states of light and weather, and conveying the grandeur of its architecture, the geometry of embankments, and the rhythm of its bridges.
The exhibition presents various facets of the master’s art, consistently showcasing his reportage series, independent works, and magnificent cityscapes. Portraits of political figures — Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin, Anatoly Sobchak, as well as cultural figures, such as Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Daniil Granin, Alexander Rosenbaum, are displayed alongside the photographs of rural residents. Landmark historical events coexist with scenes of everyday urban reality.
For Sergei Kompanichenko, there seem to be no uninteresting subjects — through the lens of his camera, everyone gains significance, and each photograph becomes a complete work of art.
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