Um outro Boris. Intimista.

"Mikhailov's wife and collaborator over several decades, Vita, is the recurring subject in Intimacy.In one work she grasps Mikhailov's penis and pulls him along against a backdrop of palm-trees: a snapshot that suggests the complexity of human relations but also, perhaps, intimates the inextinguishable possibility of ecstacy. In another photograph she is seen sitting nude on a stool, brushing her granddaughter's hair: a meditation on time and place that blends the aesthetics of a staged photo and snapshot, genre and verite, socialist-realist saccharine and kitchen-sink objectivity. In the third work, we see her bare legs pressed against a tree (perhaps in the aftermath of, or in preparation for, sex) and on the naked earth (a trysting spot in a park in Marbella) a strewn assortment of discarded condoms, the remains of innumerable "holiday romances".The works in Intimacy may be seen as a counterweight to Mikhailov's best-known series, Case History, a documentation of the lives of down-and-outs in Kharkov, Ukraine. As an examination of Mikhailov's private life, Intimacy is not at all about social confrontation, but the photographs display the same theatrical sense of exposure as the Ukrainian portraits. Many people have questioned Mikhailov's own role in the forced confessions of the body that make up Case History; but as Intimacy shows, the compulsion to document the "dissolution of beauty" (his words) is central to his work as a whole."in http://www.matthewbown.com/artists%26pages/mikhailov/index.html

Boris Mikhailov II

Born in the former Soviet Union he lived and worked for several decades in his hometown Kharkov, Ukraine. He received an education as an engineer and started to teach himself the practice of photography. Today he is one of the most successful and well-known photographers, who already was actively working in soviet times.


His work very much is influenced in the means of Concept-Art and Social-Documentary-Photography.

At the end of the 1960s he had his first exhibition. After the KGB found nude-pictures of his wife he was set off his job as an engineer and started to full-time work with photography. He shot a series of everyday-life scenes-documentation.

His most famous work during this period (1968-1975) was the "Red Serie". In these photographs he mainly used the colour red, to picture people, groups and city-life. Red is the color standing for 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 his work Klebrigkeit (1982) he added explaining notes, or he is using diary-like writings. As an important part of contemporary art are considered his works "Case History". Here he examines the consequences of the break down of the Soviet Union for the people living there. Therefore he systematically took pictures of homeless people, who soon started trusting him. More than 500 photographs show the situation of people, who after the break down of the Soviet Union were not able to catch hold in a secured social system. In a very direct way Mikhailov points out his critique against the "mask of beauty" of the uprising post-soviet capitalistic way of life. It's one of the best works found within social documentary photography. in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Mikhailov_(photographer)

Boris Mikhailov

O retrato de Soth, remeteu-me para o trabalho do Boris Mikhailov.