Boris Mikhailov: Books

Ukrainian documentary photographer Boris Mikhailov (born 1938) is internationally admired for his intense, clear-eyed depictions of his homeland, the Ukraine–most famously, his portrayals of the everyday struggles of the bomzhes, the homeless, a class that dramatically enlarged after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Using this raw and emotive material, Mikhailov touches on themes ranging from the living conditions in post-communist Eastern Europe and the fallen ideals of the Soviet Union to the harsher trials of human existence. Although deeply rooted in a specific historical context, his work also narrates more accessible, personal threads of humor, lust, vulnerability, aging and death. This publication presents, in facsimile, Mikhailov’s well-known artist’s books Krymskaja Fotomanija (Crimean Photomania) and Mountains, each of which is 128 pages and which are here supplemented by 80 pages of informative, illustrated text.