Boris Mikhailov: The Hasselblad Award, 2000

In the last few years, the Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov (born 1938) has made an amazing career: one-person shows at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Photographers Gallery, London, the DAAD Gallery, Berlin, to name only a few. In 1997, he received the Albert Renger-Patzsch Award to produce his book „Unfinished Dissertation.” In 2000, he won photo book award of the International Festival for Photography in Arles/France for his second book „Case History.” After Robert Frank, William Eggleston, and Cindy Sherman, Boris Mikhailov was selected for the prestigous Hasselblad Award.

The book contains the never-before published series „The Dancers,” which Mikhailov photographed in the early 80‘s in his home town in the Ukraine, when the old Soviet Union was still a reality, before Gorbachov and perestroika. It is with great astonishment that we watch this open air dancing scenes, where older and younger people enjoy life in a way that might run counter to the images we have about everyday life in the old Soviet Union.

An essay by Russian art critic Boris Groys and an exhaustive interview make this volume a must for all those libraries and readers interested in contemporary art and photography.