Kirill Golovchenko / KACHALKA. Muscle Beach
"Kachalka" is a famous outdoor gym in Ukraine. Founded by a private initiative 35 years ago, it today offers free training facilities across 10,000 square meters of floor area for anyone who wants to get in shape. Working out on these mostly homemade, archaic-looking machines is an equalizing experience, with people from all social strata rubbing shoulders here.
The photographs taken by Kirill Golovchenko not only document the universal bodybuilding rituals that can be observed in emblematic form at Kachalka. The Ukrainian bodybuilders both young and old in his pictures also serve as a powerful and ironic visual metaphor for the ambitious spirit of awakening in this country.
Kirill Golovchenko was born 1974 in Odessa in Ukraine. Lives and works in Odessa and in Frankfurt. From 2002 until 2007 he studied photography by Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences in Germany. For his thesis »7km - Field of Wonders«, supported by Barbara Klemm, he got the documentary photography award from the Wüstenrot Foundation 07/08 as well as numerous awards and honors. Further his photographic projects have been implemented in the Ukraine supported by the documentary photography award from the Wüstenrot Foundation 07/08, the DAAD scholarship and the project funding VG Bild-Kunst. His photographs can be seen since 2003 in solo and group exhibitions in Germany and abroad, including: Photo Museum Winterthur, Switzerland, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Uferhallen Berlin, Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt, Württembergischer Art Society Stuttgart, Photokina Cologne, Art Society Bad Aibling, Art Society Ludwigshafen, Photo Espana Madrid, Photo Museum Brunswick.
»Kachalka« is the third book by Kirill Golovchenko, following »7km - Field of Wonders« (2009) and »Totalniy Futbol - A Polish-Ukrainian football travel« (2012).
