Description

What might appear at first glance as a vacationer's slideshow quickly reveals itself as a multi-layered monograph, serving as both personal amusement and social indictment. Boris Mikhailov's photographs of a day at the beach with friends gently push and break the boundaries of what he sees as defining societal norms. They frolic and strike airy poses, imitating their self-conscious fellow bathers on this Crimean beach in the Soviet Union, under which Mikhailov suffered oppression as an artist. As they push harder against that very self-consciousness and against the traditions of the past, they begin to blur the intersection of public and private, exposing their bodies in an exhilarating rush of freedom. — F.to: 18x26; pagg. 100; bicromie; rileg. brossura con sovracoperta telata. Editore: Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo, 2006.