Benign Duplicates. The Archives of Nikolai Kozakov

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Benign Duplicates is an ongoing project where I discover and study the archives of Nikolai Kozakov, a truck driver from the small village of Kadnitsy near Gorkiy city. Initially, this project was presented as part of my exhibition "Our Days Are Rich and Bright" (Moscow, 2016) in the form of a radio play/podcast and a publication of Kozakov's diaries in Russian. Here, I'd like to share with you some recent progress on the project. This part primarily focuses on the photographs taken by Kozakov (1954–1993) and comes in the form of a 128-page book, as well as a series of 100×70 cm posters printed on a manual offset machine.

The book was finished in Leipzig during my studies at Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst. It was printed on HP Indigo with two types of paper and then hand-sewn. The book was presented during an event at Rotorbooks and later promoted at the Leipzig Spinnerei on a large banner, which is a curatorial project by Marcus Dressen, a co-founder of Spector Books and a professor at HGB.

(...) In writing down his every step, Kozakov remains unknowable, like outer space — the conquest of which he devotes so much attention to in his notes. Who is he? A man of the ‘60s? An intellectual wretch? Your father’s older brother? Loser? Poet? Extraterrestrial? The diary is clearly not intended for anyone else to read: Kozakov writes it for himself and remains hermitically sealed within its text, exposing the reader to the principal and tragic impenetrability of “the Other.” Kozakov’s peculiar relationship with reality has no parallel in today’s world. It is like a message in a bottle that he sent not 50, but 500 years ago. (...)

— Maria Kuvshinova

1962, Soviet Union. On the brink of inevitable coming of communism, Nikolai Kozakov, a truck driver from the Gorky region, steals from the collective farm property, goes to Kazakhstan to work on the gas pipeline construction and is treated for stuttering by hypnosis in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. Behind the ostentatious masculinity — he hunts, rides a motorcycle and is constantly drunk — Kozakov hides a secret life of a man with developed taste, a subtle observer, a student of ancient mythology. He writes poetry, takes photographs, pities himself and falls in love, perhaps too often.

— Grigor Atanesian