IGOR MOUKHIN
LA PHOTOGRAPHIE de A à Z, LES GRANDS PHOTOGRAPHES
«Je ne suis pas un flâneur, je ne me promène jamais sans but. La rue est mon domaine et les événements y affluent»,
dit d’emblée Igor Moukhin, 51 ans, qui propose son «Moscou» en trente-cinq photographies au noir et blanc très aéré. Sa vision enjambe plusieurs décennies, des premières publicités pour les cigarettes de l’Ouest aux souvenirs plus intimes de sa ville natale , dont il décrit l’énergie «positive comme les nuages négatifs» avec ce qui fut, un temps, l’ouverture vers l’euphorie de la perestroïka. Aujourd’hui professeur à l’école Rodtchenko, cet autodidacte cherche à transmettre à ses étudiants la distance nécessaire, afin, dit-il, qu’ils comprennent au mieux sa philosophie : «Tout ce qu’on voit n’est qu’un théâtre.»
Né en 1961, sous l’ère du président Kroutchev, Igor Moukhin est le témoin d’évènements et de bouleversements importants puisqu'il a vécu à l’âge adulte la Perestroïka et la fin du régime soviétique, puis la Russie convertie au libéralisme. A travers son objectif, il a capté les multiples visages de la Russie.
La galerie RTR présente l'exposition personnelle du photographe russe Igor MOUKHIN, un de plus importants photographes russes, intitulée « My Moscow ». 35 images en noir et blanc retracent sa vision de sa ville natale depuis les années 90 à aujourd'hui. En première européenne, le livre « My Moscow », paru chez Schilt publishing a été présenté, lors du vernissage le 12 mars, en présence de l'artiste.
Né en 1961 à Moscou, Igor Moukhin est aujourd'hui un photographe de renommée internationale. C'est en 1987 que les « Jeunes Soviétiques », première exposition à lui être entièrement consacrée, le révèle aux yeux du grand public. Dès lors, il participe à de nombreuses expositions en Russie, mais également aux Etats Unis, en Chine, et dans de nombreux pays d'Europe.
Dans les collections: Museum of Modern Art (New York), Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris), Fond National d'Art Contemporain (Paris), Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington), Galerie Tretiakov (Moscou), parmi d'autres.
+ son livre "My Moscow"
BY TARYN JONES – MARCH 9, 2012
POSTED IN: ARTISTS
Considered to be one of Russia’s most brilliant contemporary photographers, Igor Vladimirovich Moukhin was born in Moscow on November 19, 1961. Although he realized his passion for photography at the age of 16, he worked as a heating technician and yard cleaner for several years before actively pursuing an artistic education. Finally, between 1984 and 1985, he attended classes at the studio of Alexander Lapin, a prominent Muscovite photographer who organized the “studio of artistic photographers” in Moscow State University’s House of Culture between 1985 and 1987. From 1987 onwards, Moukhin regularly held personal exhibitions of his work. He spent several years photographing rock musicians of the Soviet underground music scene during the Perestroika years of the 1980s, a decade that was to prove instrumental in his work’s growth. Moukhin quickly became known for his portraits of renowned musicians Viktor Tsoi, Boris Grebenshikov, and Petr Mamonov among others.
From Young People (1985-1989)
It has been said that Moukhin is an artist who was fortunate enough to find himself in the right place at the right time. He began work during Perestroika and Glasnost, and his rise to prominence traces the waning years of Communism and the blossoming of new Russian capitalism. He began work as a free-lance photographer in 1989. In 1988, his work was published in Artemy Troitsky’s work “Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia”. In 1990, his work was published in another of Troitsky’s works, “Tusovka: Who’s Who in the New Soviet Rock Culture”. Moukhin photographed a fading subculture, and, while collections of his work sell for tens of thousands of dollars today, he did it only for art’s sake.
Beginning at the onset of perestroika in 1985, Moukhin’s work was displayed and published not only in the Soviet Union but abroad. In 1988 the onset of his collections Fragments and Soviet Monuments shot him to prominence amongst the leaders of the new era of Russian photography. Fragments, which features details of Soviet propaganda posters and other Soviet artwork, is typical of some of Moukhin’s work, which turns Soviet symbolism on its head by highlighting the transient, fading nature of art that was designed to inspire and unite a nation. Through Moukhin’s gaze, the now destabilized symbols lose their potency. The Fragments series coincided with the West’s rising interest in early Soviet posters, such as those designed by Alexander Rodchenko, the co-founder of the Constructivist movement.
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