Details
Sergei Vasiliev (b. 1937)
Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Print No. 9
giclée print
image: 61 x 4138in. (155 x 105cm.)
frame: 65 x 44in. (165 x 112cm.)
Executed in 2010
Provenance
FUEL Design & Publishing, London.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2010.
Exhibited
London, FUEL Design, Russian Criminal Tattoo Exhibition, 2010.
London, Saatchi Gallery, Gaiety is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union: Art from Russia, 2012, no. SV-02 (illustrated unpaged).
Special notice
VAT rate of 20% is payable on hammer price and buyer's premium
Please refer to the storage and collection terms as set out in the terms and conditions.
-
Brought to you by

Lot Essay

Russian photographer Sergei Vasiliev is celebrated for his images of tattooed Soviet prisoners, which document the secret coded language of criminals in the USSR. The artist was a staff photograph for the newspaper Vecherny Chelyabinsk for over thirty years, during which time he also worked as a prison warden. Taken between 1989 and 1993, and later reproduced as prints, his photographs accompanied a series of drawings by Danzig Baldaev, who catalogued the various tattoos that prisoners scraped and inked into their skin. Riddled with hidden messages about their crimes and the Soviet regime, these designs provided an illicit network of communication, strewn with insults about the violent and repressive authorities. Though the KGB originally decried Baldaev’s work, they eventually realised that documenting these tattoos could support their criminal files, and brought in Vasiliev to provide photographic evidence. The results, however, were far from clinical, offering instead a series of powerful humanising portraits: the present work was included in the Saatchi Gallery’s 2012 exhibition Gaiety is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union. Three printed volumes of the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia, published by FUEL, are now held in the Design Museum, London.

Related Articles

Sorry, we are unable to display this content. Please check your connection.

More from
Handpicked: 100 Works Selected by the Saatchi Gallery
Place your bid Condition report

A Christie's specialist may contact you to discuss this lot or to notify you if the condition changes prior to the sale.

I confirm that I have read this Important Notice regarding Condition Reports and agree to its terms. View Condition Report