Borys Mykhailov

Borys Andriyovych Mykhailov (1938) is a Ukrainian photographer. He has been described as "one of the most important artists to have emerged from the former USSR."

Born in the former Soviet Union, Mykhailov lived and worked for several decades in his hometown of Kharkiv, Ukraine. He received an education as an engineer and started to teach himself photography. Today he is one of the most successful and well known among the photographers who were already active in the Soviet era. His work combines conceptual art and social documentary photography.

"Before sleep, after drinking"

After the KGB found nude pictures of his wife he was laid off his job as an engineer and started to work full-time as a photographer. In Case History, considered an important part of contemporary art, he examines the consequences of the breakdown of the Soviet Union for its people. He systematically took pictures of homeless people. It shows the situation of people who after the breakdown of the Soviet Union were not able to find their place in a secure social system. In a very direct way Mykhailov points out his critique against the "mask of beauty" of the emerging post-Soviet capitalistic way of life.