Boris Mikhailov: Diary

Photographer Boris Mikhailov (born 1938) dedicates his new volume Diary to the “Blaue Horse” group, a group of young people, many from his Ukrainian hometown of Kharkov, who were persecuted and jailed by Soviet authorities at the end of the 1950s for “pornography,” a catchall accusation that could accommodate crimes like loving the Beatles and dancing to rock and roll. Mikhailov introduces this collection of his Soviet-era photographs by explaining that he took up photography in the shadow of that moment of repression, aware that almost all of his subjects and images would run foul of the party line. In this new artist’s book, Mikhailov’s photographs―showing daily life in the Soviet Union, in color and black and white, in the unblinking style for which the artist is known―are presented without further comment, arranged in an intimate scrapbook style.