learning to unsee
Mihail Novakov’s photographic approach carries signifiers and elements of commercial photography - with its bright
colours, hard shadows and usage of flash. The aesthetic of the images carry and sell feelings and desires. The
advertising industry has borrowed from different styles and movements across art history to serve a primarily
capitalist function. Novakov inverts this phenomenon and applies his skill in commercial projects to his
artistic practice, documenting the peculiar moments of everyday reality. Dissecting them through the critical lens of
his camera, the objects he photographs are stripped down from their utility and are transformed into fetishised,
kitschy versions of themselves. As viewers, looking at these highly stylised images it becomes hard to distinguish
whether what we see before us is genuine or staged, whether it is reality or a simulation. In a humorous and witty
way, the artist makes us question the role of photography in constructing the images that shape our reality, guiding us
to unsee, only to be able to see anew.
