The famous Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov is currently showing his work at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York.
“Refracted Times,” a retrospective of his work through February 22, 2025, includes early pieces such as the slideshow “Yesterday’s Sandwich” and his newest video work, “Our Time is Our Burden” (2024).
Mikhailov and his wife and creative partner, Vita, spoke to The Moscow Times about the exhibition, their artistic process and themes that run through his photography.
Andrei Muchnik: Does the exhibition have a specific concept, or was it influenced by the availability of images?
Vita Mikhailova: It is a deliberate decision. There is the very first work, ‘Yesterday’s Sandwich,’ and the latest, ‘Our Time is Our Burden,’ and everything in between – that’s how the retrospective is created. And, of course, space dictates some of it. Time is a warehouse – there is only so much we can show.
At the same time, it also depends on the moment – when you dictate what is worth showing right now and what no longer feels relevant. It’s not that it doesn’t work anymore, but simply that we don’t feel like working on it at the moment.
AM: Why this series?
War: Maybe because right now we are talking more about Ukraine. That’s why the series ‘By the Ground,’ created in 1991, is featured – it’s actually the first series made in Ukraine, marking the end of the Soviet Union and the beginning of Ukraine. ‘At Dusk’ was shot in the 1990s.
And ‘Salt Lake’ is actually from the late Soviet era, 1986. It’s about Sloviansk – an area that is currently at the center of our greatest concern.
Boris Mikhailov: My name – Boris Mikhailov – itself is associated with the end of the Soviet era.
War: He wrote, as a historian, capturing the Soviet era and the worldview of the Soviet man.
AM: Where do you live now?
War: We live in Berlin. And all our children have now moved from Kharkiv to Berlin as well.
AM: Before the war, as I understand it, you traveled to Ukraine and worked there many times, correct?
War: Yes, we never thought about real immigration. We still have Ukrainian passports, and it worked out that we traveled back and forth. But not anymore.
AM: Do you consider yourself a Ukrainian artist, a post-Soviet artist? Or maybe international or German?
Boris: It’s hard to say. Maybe a Soviet underground artist.
AM: Since we are talking about the Soviet underground, can you tell me about your relationship with the concept of Moscow?
Boris: I knew Vladimir Yankilevsky, Erik Bulatov, and Ilya Kabakov – although I knew Bulatov a little. But my relationship with Kabakov was very close. He encouraged me to explore the ideas of what could be done. He pushed me to approach things as if I were watching from above.
From Kabakov, I also learned the importance of connecting with text. I was already working with the text, but it was not emphasized. My knowledge also encouraged me to give text a greater role, which, of course, was one of the most important aspects of modern art at that time.
AM: Tell me about your creative process – does your new series come alive?
War: I think we need to start not with the new series but with the old ones.
Boris is an old-school photographer who always carries a camera. Nowadays, everyone has a phone, but he was someone who always had a camera with him. When one series ends, the search for the next begins. Every day, he posts test photos at home, but only when one particular photo appears does it catch his attention.
And then, when you’re out on the street, you start to see how everything layers on that original feeling, and that’s how it comes together.
The new series also comes together based on some inner feelings. There is a constant process of shooting. It’s kind of a process of collecting and combining things – the shape of how you feel – and then the sequence starts to take form.
Boris: I try to capture, on the one hand, the atmosphere, and on the other hand, the situation corresponds to a certain title.
War: Boris’s latest work, ‘Our Time is Our Burden,’ has three parts. The first one was shot in 2019. At that time, there was this uneasiness, this anxiety, as if it was predicting something. Then came the second part, created when there was still a feeling that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance to avoid death. The third part is already about the war – it is 2023, and by that time, we feel the full impact of what it is like.
Boris: These are diptychs; that’s the method i use now. Arresting war without war itself can only happen through awareness. You’re just walking down the street, and suddenly, you might meet something. These are non-war situations, but somehow they remind me of war or evoke thoughts connected to it. I shot a lot in Berlin.
AM: And pictures from Ukraine – are they just news stories?
Boris: Yes, from TV, from TikTok.
AM: What about your first work – ‘Yesterday’s Sandwich’ – did you plan this as a slideshow, or was it intended as individual portraits?
Boris: These are all accidental things, accidentally captured and then collected together. The idea here is about moving from the mechanical to the semantic level. Two slides placed inside one frame represent a new technological discovery. The main thing was to get this combination. And these combinations are, in a way, something new – combinations that have not existed in cinema before.
It’s kitsch, a reaction against authority; the only way to stick to power was by creating kitsch.
AM: The slideshow uses sound from Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon.’ Why this album? Were the pictures taken at the same time you were listening to it?
Boris: The photos were taken a little earlier, but it was about the same period.
AM: And ‘Salt Lake,’ what’s going on there?
It is Sloviansk, in the Donetsk region. It is warm soda water that comes out of the tap, and people bathe in it, it is supposed to have healing properties. It is the Ukrainian Ganges.
It is completely safe; my father used to swim there. In the picture you see a kind of sea resort situation, although it is not a sea resort. It’s this game of being ‘in-between.’
AM: Why is the 1991 series called ‘By the Ground’?
It was shot from below, as if through the eyes of an old woman walking, close to the ground.
This was the beginning of the country [the U.S.S.R.’s] to fall It was the collapse of the whole country – not only the ideological collapse, but the collapse of architecture, of buildings, of everything.
At that time, many people got some kind of freedom, but with it came an economic blow. This series already has a certain concept, which is reflected in its use of color. First of all, everything turned brown. Visually, it feels like we’ve stepped into the past. This was in Kharkiv, but it could be any city.
AM: And the ‘Evening Time’ series – is that also Kharkiv?
Boris: Yes, the photos were taken in Kharkiv in the 1990s. It is my relationship with the war. I know, I still remember it. It was that strong feeling I had when there was only a month left before the Germans arrived in Kharkiv, less than a week, and we had to leave for Kirov. I remember the great anxiety my mother felt with the birds flying under the lights.
AM: Vita, what role do you play in tandem?
War: I really don’t want to answer that. (smile)
Boris: The homeless series [‘Case History,’ one of Mikhailov’s most famous series, first shown in the late 1990s] it would not have been possible without the War. We basically did that series together.
War: We’re just talking about photography 24/7, that’s my role.
Boris: Vita knows where everything is and handles everything – she is an institution in herself.
He has connections and a deep understanding of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. This allows him to find and present what has not been shown before, and create something new while continuing the same path.
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