Mikhailov, Boris (b. 1938), Ukrainian photographer. Originally an engineer, Mikhailov took up photography after the KGB's discovery of nude photos of his wife lost him his job. After 1989, though middle aged, he became the enfant terrible of photography in the former USSR and famous in the West; partly, perhaps, because the ‘Brasilianization’ shown in his photographs—extreme polarization between rich and poor—is hardly a serious possibility there. His work can be seen both as a reaction against the pre-1989 embargo on anything liable to bring the ‘Soviet way of life’ into disrepute, including the imperfect naked body, and as a celebration of survival against the odds. His series Unfinished Dissertation (1998), about everyday life in his native Kharkov, began in 1984, the pictures being stuck into the back of a friend's thesis with various texts and observations. Case History (1999) showed Kharkov's bomzhes (homeless): derelict humans urinating in the street, inebriated or sniffing glue; or, for a consideration, lifting filthy clothes to reveal inflamed genitals and scarred, emaciated bodies. The series was shown at the Saatchi Gallery, London, in 2001 and won the Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize.
— Robin Lenman
