Further Reading
Bailey, Ronald H.The Photographic Illusion. Los Angeles:
Alskog, 1976.
Coleman, A.D. ‘‘Duane Michals.’’Camera and Darkroom
(November 1992): 22–31.
Kozloff, Max.Now Becoming Then. Pasadena, California:
Twelvetrees Press, 1990.
Livingstone, Marco, ed.The Essential Duane MichalsBoston:
Bulfinch Press Book, Little Brown & Company, 1997.
Sand, Michael. ‘‘Duane Michals.’’ApertureNo. 146 (Win-
ter, 1997): 52–61.BORIS MIKHAILOV
Ukrainian
Boris Mikhailov has come to be considered one of
the key post-Soviet artists within both the Western
and Eastern canons of contemporary photography.
He was born in Kharkov in the former USSR, and
his career has spanned the Soviet control of his
country through the declaration of Ukrainian inde-
pendence. Incorporating diverse photographic stra-
tegies, aesthetics, and subject matter, he has created
a challenging and wide-ranging body of work noted
for its critique of Soviet life, contemplation of social
changes after the fall of communism, and its broader
ongoing examination of the role of both the photo-
grapher and the photograph within diverse political,
geographic, and social contexts.
From the start, Mikhailov’s work challenged the
rules that defined what was acceptable as art under
theSovietregime.Itwasattheageof27thatMikhai-
lov took his first photograph—a portrait of a ‘‘sensual
and Western-looking woman smoking a cigarette’’
(Williams 2001). Despite attempts to have it publicly
exhibited, the photo was repeatedly denied because its
subject matter was deemed inappropriate. A few years
later, when officials discovered nude photos of his
wife among his private documents at work, he was
fired from the state-owned camera factory where he
had been employed as a technical engineer. Yet in
spite of this, he resolved to devote himself exclusively
to the medium around 1967, beginning a career as a
black-market commercial photographer and privately
pursuing his own artistic projects.
Choosing to bypass the heavily censored state-
sponsored channels for making and showing photo-
graphs—namely camera clubs, magazines, and public
exhibitions—Mikhailov gravitated towards a more
radical and underground culture for circulating his
work. He participated in clandestine exhibitions ar-
ranged in private homes known as ‘‘kitchen shows.’’
Here, he slowly began to gain recognition for his
work and for the first time found himself in the
company of like-minded artists critical of Soviet life.
It was at one of these exhibitions that Mikhailov met
the Russian artist Ilya Kabokov, who went on to
notably influence the development of his work and
introduce him to the wider Moscow scene of dissident
artists and intellectuals.
Mikhailov’s photographic projects have almost
always taken the form of extended series, often com-
pleted over the course of several years, and widely
varying from one another in terms of their formal
aspects, conceptual strategies, and subject matter.
Key to understanding many of Mikhailov’s pieces is
appreciating the extent to which he was directly and
indirectly reacting to controls and restrictions placed
upon photographic practice in the USSR. Any photo
that questioned Soviet power or way of life, any por-
trayal of the naked body, and the very act of photo-
graphing without permission in most public spaces
were strictly forbidden. Meanwhile, official images of
the idealized Soviet citizen were everywhere in the
culture, portraying something Mikhailov and many
others felt was entirely distant from their own reality.
In the thick of these conditions, Mikhailov set out
to make his early works,Red Series(1968–1975),
Luriki(1971–1985), andSots Art(1975–1986), each
experimenting with aesthetic devices, such as a snap-
shot style of shooting, the hand-coloring of pictures,
and re-appropriation of found photos, to pointedly
articulate his discontent with the Soviet status quo.
TheRed Seriescontrasts drearily prosaic moments
in communist life against the crowning visual symbol
of Soviet power and control—the color red. Both
LurikiandSots Artplay sarcastically with the Rus-
sian tradition of hand coloring photographs, thereby
transforming this popularized aesthetic into a meansMICHALS, DUANE