Boris Mikhailov
About the Work
Boris Mikhailov's images bring to life one of the most tumultuous chapters of the 20th century: the height, decline, and fall of the Soviet Union and its disturbing aftermath. Yet as they chart this extraordinary history, they also express the complex emotions and intellectual subtlety of a powerful artist. Mikhailov's work ranges from the covert transgressions of a critical mind under a totalitarian regime to the tender depictions of daily life. The world in his pictures is always unadorned and raw – everyday scenes, poverty, sexuality, despair, resignation, the decline of a forgotten Eastern Europe. Mikhailov, always dedicated to the outcasts of society, explores the position of the individual within the historical mechanisms of public ideology, touching on such subjects as Ukraine under Soviet rule, the living conditions in post-communist Eastern Europe, and the fallen ideals of the Soviet Union. Although deeply rooted in a historical context, Mikhailov’s work also incorporates profoundly engaging and personal narratives of humor, lust, vulnerability, aging, and death.
About the Artist
Boris Mikhailov (born in the USSR in 1938), is a Ukrainian photographer. He has been described as one of the most important artists to have emerged from the former USSR. Mikhailov studied electrical engineering at Kharkov Technical University and initially worked as an engineer before he began taking photographs as a self-taught photographer in the late 1960s. The early series of the 1960s and 70s often show personal images of friends, acquaintances or partners of the artist. The world in his pictures is always unadorned and raw - everyday scenes, poverty, sexuality, despair, resignation, the decay of a forgetting Eastern Europe. Mikhailov is always dedicated to the outcasts of society. His works have been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide, including most recently at the Sprengel Museum, Hanover (2013), Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2012), Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011), Tate Modern, London (2010), Kunsthalle Wien (2010), and the Ukrainian Pavilion at the Biennale di Venezia (2007). Boris Mikhailov lives and works in Kharkov as well as in Berlin.