Boris Mikhailov, the photographer who documents the atrocious history of the communist occupation in Ukraine

The Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP, a kind of national museum of photography), and the Bourse de Commerce (BDC, the private museum of the richest man in France), present with the honors of an event two major retrospectives of the work by photographer Boris Mikhaïlov (Kharkov, Ukraine, 1938), who documents the atrocious history of the communist occupation, its ravages, its legacy, a field of terrifying ruins whose contemplation inspires devilish fear. ‘Ukrainian newspaper’ (MEP) presents, until the beginning of 2023, a review of several hundred of his snapshots, from the 60s to the end of the 20th century. Meanwhile, the personal collection of the Pinault family, at the BDC, exhibits, also until next year, one of the most important private collections of one of the great European photographers of our time. Mikhailov was born, grew up and worked, as an engineer and photographer (self-taught), in the second city of Ukraine. Presenting his work in Paris, the artist explains his life and his work in this way: «As a child, in nursery school, we were in the dining room. My mother had prepared a sandwich for me. Without realizing it, a little bit of grease fell on a portrait of Stalin… and, several of my classmates started running screaming: “Boris is an enemy of the people! Boris is an enemy of the people! Fortunately, the teacher was a little more understanding. My family temporarily escaped police persecution…«. Mikhailov studied engineering. But he was fired from his company for using his photo lab to develop some snapshots, which, to top it off, were prohibited. “It’s hard to imagine what communist tyranny was like,” says Mikhailov, adding: “Taking a picture, on the street, could land you in jail. A photo that displeased a leader made him an enemy of the people. I made my work from that reality, atrocious«. «Socialist realism» his work, more than half a century photographing the street and the characters, public and private, of the communist Ukraine, first and the Ukraine that conquers its freedom, later, is an exceptional, terrifying document. Mikhailov used the “codes” of “socialist realism” to “turn them upside down.” The photographer takes “official” photos, which over time, take on his true dimension: an ironic, sarcastic vision of communist iconography. From there, the great Ukrainian master uses many other resources, typical of a “self-taught” victim, also, of the lack of technical resources. To “save” reels, he manages to “superimpose” several photos: a naked woman can have the background of terrifying buildings; men and women in flower fields can be the “background” of “communist advertising fields”; poor of mercy “show off” their tattoos with the face of Lenin; modest families contemplate convict camps; men on bicycles race past blood-red stained walls; rioters parade waving communist flags; the poor of mercy wait for trains that do not arrive at the stations of cities devastated by war and poverty; dead children abandoned in the streets… The physical, material, professional, social, economic, political precariousness, the totalitarianism of the communist Ukraine, forced Mikhailov to work in exceptional conditions. Poverty and cruelty If one had to resort to the canons of Western art and photography, around the same time, until today, the photographer began using “socialist realism”, but using the concave mirror of the grotesque, to continue using his own resources of conceptual art, the most radical experimentalism. The final result is very exceptional, and allows us to understand the heroic rejection of the Ukrainian people against the imperial troops of Vladimir Putin. As a document, in the manner of Andrzej Wajda, Mikhailov invites us to discover the terrifying reality of communist Ukraine: of ferocious poverty and cruelty. Where Wajda is lyrical, poetic, heroic, Mihhaïlov is nihilistic, cruel, disenchanted, disturbing. As a great creator, with his own visual language, Mikhailov invites us to discover that and this Ukrainian reality seen in the light of the great artistic movements of his time, which is ours. With shades. There where critical pop and conceptual, European, and North American art can get carried away by aesthetic elitism, the Ukrainian photographer proposes us to discover the seeds and roots of the tragic Ukrainian reality, today, that of the people in arms trying to liberate themselves from Russian imperialism . Mikhailov has lived in Berlin for two years with his wife and part of his family. From the German capital he has followed, uneasily, the great health crisis of the pandemic and the attempted military occupation launched by Vladimir Putin. Faced with these realities, Mikhailov comments, passing through Paris: “I lost my laughter a long time ago. Impossible to laugh. Even smiling is hard for me. But I keep faith in the future. Just a year ago, kyiv was a young city with a lot of energy. The way to go is very dangerous. But I have faith in a country, in my people. I deeply believe that Ukraine will continue to be free, standing, independent.”