Andrey Biljo

Artist, restaurant keeper, writer, psychiatrist and television anchorman

You are surrounded by a sea of different objects: radio sets, vacuum cleaners, electric floor polishers, tape recorders… and all of them are systematically laid out on the shelves. Even the characters of your caricatures have their clearly arranged functions and details. They have buttons, ties, and collars. Why?

I have always loved old things accumulating some energy and time. The warmth of that time, some memories. I need it because I am an artist.  I can’t do without it.  There is no doubt that it should be a part of material culture of all people. To greater degree for some of us, to smaller degree for others.

Do you get absorbed in what you do?

If you excuse my being immodest, I can say I have a keen eye. I notice every detail. I am a psychiatrist. It was my ability not only to see  well but also to notice more details than other people can that led me into this profession. Because you know that every object and every detail is a distinguishing characteristic of some period of time or a person, or some interior. It speaks volumes to those who can see and interpret.

Judging by the interior of the Petrovich restaurant one can say that it has the atmosphere of the past, perhaps, of some memories. There is hardly anything of the present.

Certainly, it is the atmosphere of the past. Except that it is not quite clear of what period exactly because there are different periods represented here. The thirties, the forties. the fifties…. This is the time eclecticism. Though one can feel the atmosphere of warmth, of something like time machine carrying you back somewhere to the past. This is what makes me glad. 

Why are you glad?

Not many present-day things can make me happy. I like to combine modern and old-fashioned things, to create such eclecticism – it is very difficult. This is what I did decorating my own home. Modern and old-fashion things are combined there. For example, I like cupboards very much. Contemporary material culture doesn’t have any style. I think that styles were gone at some stage, after the years of the Thaw - the sixties. This period was the last period of style all around the world. It can be seen in the movies of the sixties – clothes, interiors…It was the last disappearing style. Then it was over and done with style which was replaced by single shadows of style. You can choose this or that designer. But something that was common and unifying, the characteristic feature of that time on the whole, was gone.  For example, the totalitarian style could be found everywhere – in Germany, in the USSR and Belgium. That style was ponderous and vigorous. The style of the 60s came as the denial of it. New light materials appeared – plastic, aluminum pipes. New things, such wonderful things like a triangular three-legged stool.  Other graphic arts and new artists appeared. As for Miró, he appeared earlier but it were the 60s when his works began to be used in decorative and applied arts. Abstract art. It emerged long ago but came to be used in interior design later. And then the era of  stylelessness began.  It is difficult for me to find a place in it so I am still by myself. I prefer eclecticism, vintage style. It is interesting to combine incompatible so that this combination would be harmonious. I was interested in hi-tech but for a short period of time. When there’s too much of it, it becomes a construction set which it is cold and doesn’t attract me because I understand it.

Is it not mysterious enough?

There is no warmth, no time in it. It is dull to me. If something doesn’t have any mystery, if you can work it out and understand at once, this is of no interest to me. We all were children once. Why do I like cupboards? Because I think cupboards are mysterious. I can stare at a cupboard forever.  I bought a cupboard when was doing repairs. It was restored and brought to my place.  I sit on the sofa having breakfast or dinner and look at the cupboard. And it is always interesting to me. I keep noticing something new in this cupboard.

What do you see in it?

Well, a lot of things. This is an art nouveau cupboard. It has a stained-glass window I see in a new way every time I look at it.  Sometimes I see a flower, sometimes I see   a woman’s profile, then I suddenly notice какая-то консоль which hasn’t attracted my attention before. Из окна падает и отбрасывает интересную тень. Вставленное зеркало, которое отражает то одно, то другое.  It is different every time the lighting changes.  Do you understand what I mean? It is interesting. It has some warmth. It excites your imagination.

It all depends on a person, doesn’t it?

It all depends on a person because there are people who don’t give a Chicken-feed about it. Every person has a certain turn of mind.  I have got artistic mentality, I can fantasize and imagine. And there are people who are absolutely lacking in these abilities.  They are not worse and not better, they are just different.  These people are reasonable, do not ponder over things, and do not see them at all.  There are people who don’t even care how something is arranged.  They do not care about the interior of their homes. They don’t give a damn about that; they can eat on a newspaper, even open a tin and eat with a knife from it. They are indifferent.

So, the interior is of great importance for your life, isn’t it?

Really great. This is the arrangement of the space around me. Interior is very informative for me. It conveys 90% of information. Home interior can tell me about a person living there. The interior of a restaurant tells about the restaurant itself. Such encoded information tells me about everything including history, tastes, level of education and intelligence and culture on the whole.

What in your opinion is a photograph for interior design?

Mood and attitude are very important for me. In my country house there are photographs hanging on the walls. I have a poster I bought in Venice. There is a flood on San Marco square of the sixty-something depicted on it. . This is a very famous picture. I like this photograph awfully because I feel the attitude. There is also a photo by Yury Avvakumov, gondolas under snow. Another picture of gondolas, this time they are colored, it is made by Nikita Golovanov. It is very unusual.  Then I have got a photograph by my friend Vova Dobrovolsky’s daughter, Anya Dobrovolskaya who is very young. It depicts the Eiffel Tower and a small twig of a blossomed tree. It came out to be some kind of a flying. I was affected by the mood of this photo. Perhaps, I have enumerated photographs which are not great but they are what I think to be photographs for interior design. I can catch what a photographer felt when taking the photo. There is another one picture made by Irina Tarkhanova in Holland. It depicts dirty bicycles stained with paint.  Macro. The bicycles are tied together. Object photography which turns into abstract photo.  Color photograph.

How long do you think one can live with genre photography used for interior design?  There are people, relationships, feelings, actions…

Such photography requires specific interior. It is not for everyone to get on with it. Besides, it will take very much on itself so that one will rather have to choose interior for it. In other words, such photographs dictate certain interior.

Were you father interested in photography?

Yes. My father took up photography when he was a child. It was just the dawn of photography.  He made a camera himself. Some of its parts are still here and I use all of them for different purposes. I’ve made a frame from one of them. Others are just here. He made this camera using a manual. Such a wooden camera, with a shutter blind. I still keep this manual which tells how to make a camera. It was published in 1932, something like that. My father was an amateur but took quite good photographs. His pictures are close to artistic ones. If he had a chance to use the equipment we have today, or if we enlarge these pictures, they could be not only used for interior design but also look like artistic works.

Why did you decide to collect cameras?

Equipment simply attracts me.  Cameras are a part of old things which change quickly together with time. Time is stuck in them very tightly, as well as design. It is interesting to me from the point of view of thought and design development. I am interested in screws and lenses. It all works. And it seems to be wonderful to me.

And what if they wouldn’t make photographs?

Well, what of that? They are very beautiful. And they are for interiors. I am in a sense a conservative. Photography for me is a photo album, film, printed photos. When digital photography appeared, it all became of no interest to me. I have got photo CDs my friends give me.  They lie on the shelves signed. I never open them. I can’t imagine it. The culture of photography is when you turn on cosy light and begin to turn over the pages of this album, and you get overwhelmed with some memories. This is what photography means for me. If there is nothing of it, then there is no photography for me. A photograph can be hanging on the wall or stand in a frame on the secretaire or bedside table but not in a computer.

Do you take photographs?

These days actually no.

What camera do you have?

A digital one. I bought it but so not use at all.  I purchased it when traveled somewhere with a group of journalists and a friend of mine, Seryoja Tsigal. I made ten shots with it. I have not used it since that time. Seryoja liked it. As for me, I got bored with it awfully.  I don’t see any reasons why I should take photos.

But what about “keepsake photos”?

If I go somewhere, I am accompanied by two or three photographers who do nothing but taking photos.  They have got the most expensive equipment, giant lenses, they change them all the time. And we see quite the same things. These people are my friends; they take photos of each other, of me, of something else. Then they come back home with a great number of photos and hand them over to me. I’ve got the pictures of Kenya, Guadeloupe, China and so on.  I see no need for taking photos by myself.  Though if I went in for it, I can say in all modesty I would probably become quite a good photographer. I’ve got a keen eye. I can imagine a picture very well. It is called eidetics. It means that a person can easily imagine something, in other words, a person with lively imagination.   I consider myself an expert in many fields but I am a layman in photography and not going to even show my pictures to anyone or to be proud of them.  There are so many photographers today as there were those who liked to cut wood in patterns with a fretsaw.  And each of them thinks he is a professional photographer.

And this is the reason why you don’t want to take photos, isn’t it?

Yes. It is not interesting to me to take part in this common process. I will stand aside for the time being. You know, a photographer is first of all your eye and your head and nothing more. Your camera absolutely doesn’t’t matter.  

P.S.

Andrey Georgievich, one more question: what is time?

Time is life. It passes by. And life keeps within it.  In addition to that, time is more than life because it includes everything that existed before a person’s life but not what will exist in the future.  We can feel and taste what had existed in this world before we were born through photographs and objects, through all possible mediums.  But we can not taste time that will come after us. Time is alive. Some people notice it, some people do not. Some of us notice it painfully; some notice it at different stages. At one moment it flies, at another moment it stops. One can understand time only through objects. Books, descriptions and movies are all documents. However we can not understand it. We can not understand even the time we live in.

What is time for you personally?

It gives me food for thought. One can’t live without thinking about time. If a person doesn’t think about it, he loses part of his time, part of his life. If you feel and understand what has already passed, it means that you can understand the present and look into the future. One can’t do without it. As well as a professional photographer can’t take modern cameras if he doesn’t know anything about the old ones.  It sounds confused, perhaps, but I can not speak about time in any other way.

Photographs and interview by Foto[O₂]

Specially for Fine art Decorative photo for interior Shop Foto[O₂]

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