UKRAINIAN DIARY – Photograph of Boris Mikhailov from 1966 to today

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Review

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"...a current and poignant exhibition, which can sometimes seem harsh, but which also contains poignant photos characterised by great humanism [...] It is not to be missed!..." - Cultural information

Ukrainian Boris Mikhailov is one of Eastern Europe's most influential photographers, who has documented life in his homeland for half a century. The result is a poetic, beautiful, harsh, ugly and frightening contemporary look into life before, during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now you can experience his award-winning art in The Black Diamond.

Ukrainian Diary is the first retrospective exhibition of Boris Mikhailov in Denmark. With over 500 works, the exhibition is not just a merciless look into Ukraine's tumultuous history over more than half a century. It also presents an artist's impressive life's work, spanning vastly different artistic methods and aesthetic expressions. His works range from humor to tragedy, from social realism to the pop; from documentation of the total poverty and destitution that prevailed in Ukraine under the Soviet Union to almost burlesque nude pictures of the artist himself.

From rebel to revolutionary

Boris Mikhailov's photography career began after the KGB fired him from the factory where he worked as an engineer in the 1960s. Here he had secretly used the state-owned factory's camera and darkroom to take and develop nude photos of his then wife. A motive that in Soviet-ruled Ukraine was deeply illegal.

Now unemployed, he devoted himself to photography full time. A risky venture, as under the communist rule you were only allowed to take "authorised" photos that confirmed the Soviet regime's glossy image of society.

Mikhailov and his friends also began to secretly organize small anti-system exhibitions in their homes, so-called "dissident kitchens". This group of photographers later formed the nucleus of the Kharkiv School of Photography – one of the most influential artistic movements of the Soviet era, known for its experimental approach to photography and its often provocative and conceptual style.