Alex Yocu, Five Photographs from “The Fight Club” Series, Date Unknown, Moscow
Born in Moscow, Alex Yocu is a photographer and producer of television and internet media. He studied film making at the Moscow School of New Cinema. Yocu is the Studies Director of Photography at the School of Cinema and Television Industry in Moscow and the founder of his own studio Alex Yocu Photography.. Previously, he worked as the in-house photographer for the Gogol Center, Russia’s leading avant-garde theater and arts complex in Moscow.
Yocu started his professional photography in 2010, cooperating with leading Russian theaters. His very impressive portfolio covers fashion, advertising and reportage; but he has established a reputation as one of the leading theatre photographers based in Moscow’s premiere Gogol Center. As a producer and director of photography, Yocu has also created several short internet series and short films.
In addition to his portrait and commercial work, Alex Yocu has produced several photographic series of behind-the-scenes film, theater, and sports images. These include Kirill Serebrennikov’s 2018 musical biopic “Leto (Summer”; a dance series with Russian professional dancers Alexey Kots, Ygor Sharoyko and Artem Gerasimov; and a series with martial art fighters at a Russian fight club, among others.
Alex Yuco’s first personal photo album “Gogol Center:Backstage” was published in 2017, containing photos from the series “The Backstage Life of the Theater”. The project was started in early 2016 with the idea of capturing artists in a unique borderline state between real life and the stage, including the preparation and backstage moments between scenes. Over fifteen hundred images of two hundred performances were shot, of which five hundred were selected by Kirill Serebrennikov and published in the limited edition photo book.