Igor Mukhin
Igor Mukhin was born in 1961 inMoscow.
Since 1989 he has worked as an independet photographer. He’s participated in Moscow photobiennales,
the 3rd Moscow Biennale (2009), and others.
He teaches at the A. Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia.
Resistance
Igor Mukhin is justifiably considered Russia’s best street photographer. Only his is a special street with traffic going in two directions — one leading to the future and another to the past. On this street, Mukhin has encountered rebellious youths, enfeebled monuments of the past, the growth of the new and nostalgia for the old. It seems that for Mukhin — who has an acut sense of the oscillations of history and can discern the shifting of epochs in the battle of light with dark — reality is always ready to arrange itself in an almost perfect composition. The demonstrations and meetings, battles between various groups of citizens with a regime that is always antithetical to them, are no exception. Indeed, sometimes these hostile encounters turn out to be too photogenic, even indecently romantic. Having become entangled in the complexity of the photographs, we fight to believe our eyes, and even more so our feelings.
With time, with distance, interpretations proliferate — and the expressiveness of individual shots becomes apparent. Behind the almost cinematic pictures of events that rend the normal flow of life, we see the tangled history of our country in recent decades. And it turns out that we are no longer merely members of the audience but actually coevals of these photographs — photographs that are living, taken in dangerous circumstances, which could have led to a broken camera, to injury to the photographer or his subjects. Resistance has indeed become a visual spectacle. But like a potato snatched from the oven, it is still hot, still burning. We feel a country, our country.
Игорь Мухин. Из проекта Сопротивление. 2010. Серебряная печать, 12 фотографий, 30х40 каждая, машинная печать, 15х20 каждая фотография. Courtesy автор и XL Галерея / Igor Mukhin. From the Resistance project. 2010. Silver print, 12 pieces, 30х40 cm each, machine print, 15х20 cm each photo. Courtesy author and XL Gallery
Игорь Мухин. Из проекта Сопротивление. 2010. Серебряная печать, 12 фотографий, 30х40 каждая, машинная печать, 15х20 каждая фотография. Courtesy автор и XL Галерея / Igor Mukhin. From the Resistance project. 2010. Silver print, 12 pieces, 30х40 cm each, machine print, 15х20 cm each photo. Courtesy author and XL Gallery
Игорь Мухин. Из проекта Сопротивление. 2010. Серебряная печать, 12 фотографий, 30х40 каждая, машинная печать, 15х20 каждая фотография. Courtesy автор и XL Галерея / Igor Mukhin. From the Resistance project. 2010. Silver print, 12 pieces, 30х40 cm each, machine print, 15х20 cm each photo. Courtesy author and XL Gallery
Игорь Мухин. Из проекта Сопротивление. 2010. Серебряная печать, 12 фотографий, 30х40 каждая, машинная печать, 15х20 каждая фотография. Courtesy автор и XL Галерея / Igor Mukhin. From the Resistance project. 2010. Silver print, 12 pieces, 30х40 cm each, machine print, 15х20 cm each photo. Courtesy author and XL Gallery
Игорь Мухин. Из проекта Сопротивление. 2010. Серебряная печать, 12 фотографий, 30х40 каждая, машинная печать, 15х20 каждая фотография. Courtesy автор и XL Галерея / Igor Mukhin. From the Resistance project. 2010. Silver print, 12 pieces, 30х40 cm each, machine print, 15х20 cm each photo. Courtesy author and XL Gallery
Игорь Мухин. Из проекта Сопротивление. 2010. Серебряная печать, 12 фотографий, 30х40 каждая, машинная печать, 15х20 каждая фотография. Courtesy автор и XL Галерея / Igor Mukhin. From the Resistance project. 2010. Silver print, 12 pieces, 30х40 cm each, machine print, 15х20 cm each photo. Courtesy author and XL Gallery
Игорь Мухин. Из проекта Сопротивление. 2010. Серебряная печать, 12 фотографий, 30х40 каждая, машинная печать, 15х20 каждая фотография. Courtesy автор и XL Галерея / Igor Mukhin. From the Resistance project. 2010. Silver print, 12 pieces, 30х40 cm each, machine print, 15х20 cm each photo. Courtesy author and XL Gallery
Игорь Мухин. Из проекта Сопротивление. 2010. Серебряная печать, 12 фотографий, 30х40 каждая, машинная печать, 15х20 каждая фотография. Courtesy автор и XL Галерея / Igor Mukhin. From the Resistance project. 2010. Silver print, 12 pieces, 30х40 cm each, machine print, 15х20 cm each photo. Courtesy author and XL Gallery