Timur Novikov (1958–2002) started out in a classical avant-garde role (he was a cinema engineer, organised an exhibition in a church, played in rock bands – he even invented new musical instruments for them – directed films, made theatre sets before becoming the internationally renown founder of Neo-Academism and the New Academy of Art (NAFA) in St Petersburg, which set a kind of imperial classicism against modernism. Denis Yegelsky (1963) also worked as a lecturer at the academy, which has grown out of the “free university of all things”, combining old and new techniques. Together, they founded a club called the Mayakovsky Circle of Friends. Novikov’s incredible working capacity is demonstrated by the fact that, in addition to his exhibitions abroad, he hosted a music radio programme, wrote manifestos and published theoretical works. His clear leading role continued even after he went blind in 1997 following an illness he contracted on a trip to the United States in 1996, and he continued to organise exhibitions and produce artworks. The strange double portrait, which raises the possibility of several stories, and the figure “looking” at the sun, have in common that the eyes are hidden (behind sunglasses or half closed). They are not only too subtle for documentary photography, but also for portraits – even despite their simplicity.