George Tourkovasilis
On the street, in rooms, and even in the studio, I try to photograph people when they least expect it. These candid portraits are simultaneously a reportage, a testimony, and a record of a moment (a snapshot). And because they look absolutely balanced in space and time, they give the impression that the model had been posed, i.e. placed in the appropriate position with much care, like photographers used to do in the past. To achieve this, I search for spells of facial harmony in motion; the model moves or for a split second unwinds and relaxes—a moment of truth for the model and the photographer. Something akin to an electric spark binds them into a communion that lasts as long as a flash’s burn.
George Tourkovasilis, Self-Presentation, Zygos, June 1980 (excerpt)
George Tourkovasilis
Untitled [Boy looking away]
Vintage silver gelatin print
c. 1980
15 x 20 cm
George Tourkovasilis
Untitled [Hands, jean shirt]
C-print on Kodak paper
c. 1985
8.8 x 12.4 cm
George Tourkovasilis
Untitled [Army Belt]
C-Print on Kodak paper
c. 1985
9 x 12.7cm
George Tourkovasilis
Untitled [Chrysanthemum Still Life]
C-Print on Kodak paper
c. 1985
9 x 12.7cm
George Tourkovasilis
Untitled [Almond Blossom Still Life]
C-print on Kodak paper
c. 1985
9 x 12.7cm
George Tourkovasilis
Untitled [Boy in striped shirt from boys in transit series]
C-print on Kodak paper
c. 1985
8.8 x 12.3 cm
Known to a wider audience as the author and illustrator of ‘The Rock Diaries’ (Odisseas, 1984), the archetypal book of the local underground music scene of the 70s and 80s in Greece, Tourkovasilis was also the personal photographer and longtime assistant of Yannis Tsarouchis, who hired him in 1969 in Paris to photograph models and scenes to use for his paintings. A graduate of the Law School of Athens, with an unfulfilled dream of directing Tourkovasilis left his postgraduate studies and ambitions of directing and moved to Paris in 1968 where he settled for the next ten years.
George Tourkovasilis
Untitled [Marlboro]
n.d.
c-print
8.6 x 12 cm
George Tourkovasilis
Untitled [Sleeping Boy]
Vintage silver gelatin print
1970s
32.5 x 25 cm
George Tourkovasilis
Untitled [Dimitris Mavrikios and friend]
Contact sheet
1970s
21.2 x 22.9 cm
George Tourkovasilis
Untitled [Dance Class, Warm Up]
Vintage silver gelatin print
1970s
20 x 25.3 cm