ILYA RABINOVICH

The photographs of Ilya Rabinovich unfold upon the viewer like an anonymous docu-drama of seemingly empty places, buildings, houses, domestic interiors, backyards, warehouses, schoolrooms and colleges. Only once do we encounter a human being, a photograph of a friend from Rabinovich native country, Moldova. Included in the exhibition are four photographs of idyllic sun-drenched domestic interiors, we see a window adorned with floral curtains, surrounded by floral wallpaper, patterned blankets, a table, a chair, an old sewing machine. From behind a net curtain a glimpse of a garden is visible; it is the house of Rabinovich’s parents, where he grew up as a young boy. These images are in stark contrast to their neighboring counterparts, educational colleges, evangelist colleges and storage facilities, each photographed with an exacting eye yhat belongs simultaneously to the student, the teacher, the caretaker, the official. The viewer implicitly adopting this hybrid role, becomes immediately entangled, inseparable from Rabinovich’s inceptive processes. Fragments of notes, colourful student flyers, girlie pin-ups, an old communist newspaper titled “The Southern Truth” are pasted on whatever surface is available; these details physically manoeuvre the viewer towards the surface of the photograph. Rabinovich’s increasing curiosity towards these now empty spaces is like an itch he can’t seem to scratch, chairs that are placed on the tops of tables at the end of the day, tell us that we are finished, the education is complete. But for Rabinovich it’s not over, he carries on taking the photographs like the proverbial ‘fly-in-the-ointment’, articipating the imminent collapse, the cracks start to appear in front of the camera, positioned like an ‘ultra-slowed-down pan’ from a movie by Stanley Kubrick, the shutter clicks and Rabinovich leaves the building.

David Powell, May 2003