Boris Mikhailov
Art of the Indigent
XL Gallery, Moscow, opens April 10, 1996

The Moscow International Month of Photography, or Biennial-96, started this Friday with an outburst of color at Boris Mikhailov's exhibition "Art of the Indigent." The internationally renown photographer from Kharkov, Ukraine, presented 21 images made from the 60's to 80's in a simple yet breathtaking technique of "overlays." Long ago, in nineteen sixty-something, the artist had incidentally put two slide films together and saw "a hell of opportunities," as he remembers now - something was seen through something else, something disappeared and some other things emerged. Moving one film frame over another frame, he found new combinations from which he had only to choose, without any preparatory concept. The resulting images are wildly psychedelic, though it took almost 15 years to get them into the public eye. Anyway, now he thinks "that this was the best photo underground of the time."

These days local art critics are trying to revise the history of so-called "Moscow Conceptualism." One of the recently published essays by Ekaterina Dyogot looks for Surrealism as a true source: "... Moscow Conceptualism developed on a background of triumph and banalization of socialist realism, which itself... was enough surrealistic as the art of total desire and wholesome collective Eros..."

Mikhailov is named among the founders of Soviet conceptual photography; he is also an old friend and brother in arms of Ilya Kabakov. So why shouldn't his easy-minded "mechanical surrealism" be a romantic companion to the deep roots of Moscow art history? The veteran master adds: "Undoubtedly the time of the indigent isn't over yet. One thing I really can't understand is why did I look at everything through a woman's bottom."

The exhibition will travel to Los Angeles later this year.
The official Moscow Photo-Biennial opening is scheduled for April 10, 1996, in the presence of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.

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So far the best of Thing reviews i've seen. Good portrait of the human condition

So far the best of Thing reviews i've seen. Good portrait of the human condition

Dear Boris, Would you ever get the opportunity to read this message it is I Sander de Haas. We are ( that is .SNAP.) wondering how you are doing? And also how Sergei and Sergei are doing. We hope to meet you maybe in Berlin. I'm trying to find out when you are there. Greetings, Sander de Haas

very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very VERY interesting