Boris Mikhailov, Rote Serie, 1968 - 75. Courtesy Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin ©The Artist
The historical mechanism of political ideologies still casts a long shadow in Berlin, a city which has proved a good school for photographer Boris Mikhailov: “I knew the East, I came here to learn about the West. Berlin has given me the possibility of a new life, but an immigrant is an immigrant. You never forget where you’re from.” Mikhailov was born in the Ukraine in 1938, and his engaging works take a contemporary position in the grey zone between documentary and fine art photography, while revealing an exceptional sensibility for personal narratives.
His seminal series “Case History”, depicting the derelict life conditions of those left homeless after the fall of the Soviet Union, was the subject of a major survey at the MoMA in late 2011, and now the Berlinische Galerie is holding the largest retrospective of his work in Berlin to date. Since starting out as a photographer in the mid-1960s, the artist has produced a wide-ranging and impressively multi-facetted oeuvre. A virtuoso, Mikhailov has drawn on very different possibilities presented by the medium, depicting his immediate surroundings with both brutal bluntness and humorous irony. His constant exploration of new photographic techniques, his use of widely varying styles, but also his abilitiy to switch between a conceptual approach and a documentary perspective, make him one of the most interesting photographers today. Origin and language play an important role for Mikhailov, whose imagery relies on experience and knowledge. “You have to be in insider in a society,” he says, “to be able to depict it the way I try to. I’m not an insider in Germany, though, my German is not good enough.”
Boris Mikhailov
Time is out of joint. Photography 1966 – 2011
Berlinische Galerie
February 24 – May 28 2012
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