Have you ever thought of getting a tattoo? If so, or if you already have one, try going to the exhibition currently running at the Saatchi gallery. It is named after Josef Stalin’s famous phrase, “Gaiety was the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union”. This line was taken as the title for the exhibition of contemporary Russian art at the gallery.
The gaiety starts in the first room, where a collection of prisoners’ tattoos’ photos is exhibited. What is a tattoo for a contemporary Londoner, for a student? It is an accessory, and a statement, perhaps a fashion item or an amulet. For the Russian prisoners that photographer Sergei Vasiliev portrayed, each tattoo has a distinct meaning accepted in the criminal world. It is a system of coordinates that the prisoners live in, and according to which they are placed in a prison and criminal hierarchy.
The prisoner’s tattoo depicts main traits of a persons’ life, his character, personal “dossier”. One look at the tattoo, and it becomes possible to know who the person is — a long-term criminal who is one of the main figures in prison or a newcomer. A tattoo gives first -hand information about new prisoners. For instance, “authoritative” criminals, those who have been convicted several times, are tattooed with pictures of a cross, a church, monastery or skull. According to a Russian resource “Encyclopedia of Solovki”, the more domes a church tattoo has, for example, the more times a person has been to jail.
Different types of crimes also had, and still have, different symbolic tattoos. According to “Russian criminal tattoo encyclopedia”, special symbols like roosters depicted one’s homosexuality, or the lowest jail status. These tattoos, as well as diamond cards, those symbolizing a person who informs administration about others’ misbehavior, were inked forcefully.
Tattoos were made without any special equipment, were inked into skin with any material at hand, sometimes even blood or urine.
In the beginning, Vasiliev did not make this collection of photos as objects of art. He was actually working for the Soviet police and made photos of prisoners while there was a jail riot in one of them. The photos were published, and, as the photographer says, he was contacted by two researchers from Hungary, who were interested in tattooed prisoners.
Since then, Vasiliev continued his prison photography. He made a collection of photos in over 30 prisons in Russia. “I made those photos from 1989 — 1994. The main prisoners were in Siberian and Urals prison, there are much more tattooed people there than in Moscow or St. Petersburg”, said the artist to Westminster News Online.
In a way, these photographs are a continuation of work by Danzig Baldaev, who was cataloguing these tattoos since 1948, secretly depicting them in prisons. Saatchi’s gallery exhibition guide states that “although this kind of tattooing was illegal, the KGB realised what a resource Baldaev’s project could be for their criminal files, and eventually brought in Vasiliev to supply hard evidence of the designs’ authenticity…”
Vasiliev himself doesn’t like to talk about the reasons photos were taken. He remembers that prisoners “were glad to show me their tattoos. They would even give me coffee and sweet milk in the ‘secret room’, some of them even wrote letters to me afterwards. Jail administrations would provide me with access.. sometimes I was given helicopters to get to distant Siberian prisons”, adds the photographer.
“I am not very proud of these photos”, says Vasiliev. “This was not my best work, I think”.
However, these photographs are a “humanizing record that places the faces and bodies of the owners (at one point one in five of the Soviet population) right at the centre of the project”, the Saatchi gallery says. It is a must see to anyone interested in an underground, unique evidence of art existing outside the usual artistic experience and in humiliating conditions.
The exhibition continues in ten gallery halls, with works of seventeen Russian artists, most of them under the age of 30. But even if you are not interested in art, the exhibition of Vasiliev’s photos is well worth a visit to take a look at the unique life phenomenon and possibly rethink the new tattoo idea that you might have had.
Saatchi Gallery: Opening hours 10am – 6pm, 7 days a week, last entry 5:30pm
Admission is free to all exhibitions
Address: Duke Of York’s HQ, King’s Road, London
Nearest tube: Sloane Square, 5 minutes by foot
“Gaiety was the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union” is running till the 5th of May 2013
Photos:
Sergei Vasiliev
Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Print No. 4
2010
Giclee Print
112 x 165 cm
Image courtesy of the Saatchi Gallery, London
Sergei Vasiliev
Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Print No. 9
2010
Giclee Print
165 x 112cm
Image courtesy of the Saatchi Gallery, London
By Daria Dergacheva
