Фотоперформанс «День Ляшко»

Alexander Lyashko, founder of the photo studio at Borey Gallery and a member of the New Blockheads Cooperative, worked alongside artists, writers, and philosophers who rejected traditional artistic forms—Vadim Flyagin, Igor Panin, Vladimir Kozin, Sergey Spirikhin, Maxim Rayskin, Inga Nagel, and Oleg Khvostov. Inspired by the poetics of the OBERIU group and contemporary philosophy, New Blockheads Cooperative regarded life as a performative practice. Over six years of its existence, the group carried out around 70 performances, many of which were documented by photographer Alexander Lyashko.

Held on the artist’s birthday, May 12, 1998 (hence the original title—12051998), the performance Lyashko Day was a unique studio shoot, staged by the New Blockheads Cooperative participants. Lyashko set up the lights, stretched a white backdrop, and photographed everyone who came to the studio that day, using two cameras: a Nikon F2 and an Iskra‑1. Both black‑and‑white and color film were used. Participants included Igor Panin, Vadim Flyagin, Vladimir Kozin, Sergey Spirikhin, Klavdia Alekseeva, Maxim Rayskin, Pavel Ulyanov, Alexander Chernov, Marika Saksina, and Kristina (a model who happened to enter the studio by chance).

Igor Panin recalls that the event was conceived as a photographic study and documentation of the artistic and emotional state of a group of people united by a shared creative task or an impulse‑borne idea. The cooperative’s performances were usually known for their impulsiveness and unpredictability, meaning this studio session became a rare moment of concentration—a way to establish visual and conceptual control over the fleeting, ephemeral nature of their actions.