"Russia is a very exciting place to be now; it's so chaotic and corrupt, but despite that, there's a kind of energy," said New York musician, composer and film maker David Byrne. Byrne was in St Petersburg's Borey Art Gallery presenting an exhibition of his photos, "Evidence of Human Habitation."
The exhibition contains 60 photographs especially chosen for St Petersburg from a 100 brought to Russia. Their minimalist style demonstrate his sharp eye and attention to detail.
One of the series, called "Sacred Objects," depicts an extracted tooth, a child's shoe and a broken knife on a purple velvet cloth. This series, framed in gold, creates a strange feeling but Byrne believes that something strange can somehow make us feel good.
"There's a feeling in Russia that people think everything is possible and, at the same time, people feel nothing is possible. It's a strange contradiction," Byrne said. "In a way it's a little bit like New York. New York is also very corrupt and kind of crazy, chaotic, and yet there's a kind of energy.
People somehow survive and make something out of it. "I don't think you feel this madness and uncertainty in a lot of other cities. In many European cities it almost feels calm and peaceful. Perhaps that's a better atmosphere to live in, but here it's exciting and you can feel that energy," Byrne added. Byrne, 42, first came to Russia when it was the Soviet Union in 1989.
He was visiting Moscow with a group of rock stars as part of a campaign to promote Greenpeace's benefit album "Breakthrough." The album contained a track by the pop group "Talking Heads" which Byrne led before going solo in the late eighties. "It was different then; many things had already changed a lot," said Byrne.
"I saw some bands and went to visit some of the artists who were working at that time. It felt very much like artsy Lower East Side in New York. There wasn't a lot of money around, but you could find a way to make a living, find some help, find a place to play or hold a concert."
Talking about Russia, he said he had no illusions about "glasnost" at that time. "Gorbachev was viewed as a great hero in the West and everyone in the media world generally though he was doing a great job. But we knew that he was not well-liked here, and economically things weren't good," he said.
In October he performed in Moscow for the first time for his tour promoting his latest album "David Byrne."
But for years he has been taking pictures, which were first displayed in Tokyo, Japan, in November 1990. He said that for him photography was a "kind of Zen idea." Byrne added, "I began with no purpose. I discovered the purpose, the direction of the photography after I had already begun.
"It's like if you set out on a walk but you don't have anywhere to go. You turn to the left and then to the right and find that you were going somewhere after all. Your unconscious mind has a direction and you have to discover where it is," he added. Byrne admitted there was similarity between his music and photography.
"As is the case in much of music I was elevating very mundane objects up to a higher level. "I was taking pictures of very common things and perhaps I was trying to find something beautiful in them, even something spiritual in these everyday things," he added.
