mikhailov – FTN-blog

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With her publication THE BALLAD OF SEXUAL DEPENDENCY Goldin became the photographer of the LGBT community. Her photographs are rarely staged , but are set up in a documentary style. Because of their content,( drug abuse, heroin, death, alcohol and mistreatment) these photographs are in many cases unpleasant to look at as is the same with the photographs by Mikhailov. They can be compared with the photographs by Boris Mikhailov, who in the same decade photographed the less fortunate in Russian society. Both have won the Hasselblad award for photography and will be remembered for the excellent way they portrayed the people and society around them. Publications by Nan Goldin are available at www.ftn-books.com

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I can not make a better blog than the information which is given on the Saatchi site at:

http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/boris_mikhailov.htm

but what i know from a personal point of view is that Mikhailove for me is arguably the best photographer from the last 3 decades. Raw and tender at the same time and a very personal point of view.

Here is the short Biography on Mikhailov :

Born in the former Soviet Union, Mikhailov lived and worked for several decades in his hometown of Kharkiv, Ukraine. He received an education as an engineer and started to teach himself photography. Today he is one of the most successful and well-known among the photographers who were already active in the Soviet era. His work combines conceptual art and social documentary photography.

Mikhailov had his first exhibition at the end of the 1960s. After the KGB found nude pictures of his wife he was laid off his job as an engineer and started to work full-time as a photographer. From 1968 to 1975 he shot several series documenting everyday scenes, the best known of them being the Red Series. In these photographs he mainly used the colour red, to picture people, groups and city-life. Red symbolized the October Revolution, political party and the social system of Soviet society. It is often said that within those works critical elements toward the existing political circumstances can be found.In Mikhailov’s Klebrigkeit (1982), he added explanatory notes, or diary-like text. In Case History, considered an important part of contemporary art, he examines the consequences of the breakdown of the Soviet Union for its people. He systematically took pictures of homeless people. It shows the situation of people who after the breakdown of the Soviet Union were not able to find their place in a secure social system. In a very direct way Mikhailov points out his critique against the “mask of beauty” of the emerging post-Soviet capitalistic way of life.

There were some classic Mikhailov books published during the last 20 years and some of them can be found at:

www.ftn-books.com