Main image: Boris Mikhailov, from Yesterday’s Sandwich series, 1970s, © Courtesy Boris and VitMikhailov and Barbara Weiss Galerie
On April 25, the first-ever joint exhibition of two key contemporary photographers, Wolfgang Tillmans and Boris Mikhailov, opened at the YermilovCentre in Kharkiv. Vogue.ua spoke with the curators of the project, Maria Isserlis and Tetiana Kochubinska.
The Kharkiv exhibition "Pair Skating" is a creative dialogue between the two prominent photographers: the German Wolfgang Tillmans and the Ukrainian Boris Mikhailov. According to the curators, this is the first exhibition in the world that combines the works of these two influential contemporary photographers from the East and the West in direct artistic dialogue.
Boris Mikhailov, Ukraine's most famous photographer, has documented the consequences of the collapse of the USSR and the lives of vulnerable social groups. The 56-year-old Tillmans, who calls Mikhailov his mentor, photographed the lives of homeless people, punks, and night clubgoers in London and other cities during the 1990s and early 2000s. The exhibition presents Mikhailov’s series "Yesterday’s Sandwich", "A Story of Illness", and "Diary", along with Tillmans’ iconic works such as Tukan, Nite Queen, Frank, and In the Shower.
The exhibition was initiated by RIBBON International, a platform supporting historical and contemporary Ukrainian art and culture, and which has implemented a number of projects related to Ukraine, including organizing the Ukrainian pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale.
The curators of the project are Maria Isserlis and Tetiana Kochubinska. Tetiana is an independent curator from Kyiv, known for several international projects, including the Kaleidoscope of (Hi)stories. Ukrainian Art 1912–2023 exhibition, which took place last year at the Albertina Museum in Dresden. Maria Isserlis, originally from Kyiv, now resides in Berlin and Dresden, where she is a curator and head of international relations at the State Art Collections in Dresden.
"What connects the practices of these two artists? This truly is a meeting of two related artistic practices. The artists speak different languages, but about the same things: the vulnerability of the body, intimacy as a political act, the boundaries between the public and private, and contemplation as a form of resistance. Both artists share a deep commitment to photography as a field for research, experimentation, and dialogue, not just representation."
On one hand, the exhibition of Wolfgang Tillmans and Boris Mikhailov could have been held in many leading museums around the world. However, for us, it was incredibly important to realize it here, in Kharkiv. First and foremost, because of the city’s context—both its historical and current one. Kharkiv is the center of Ukrainian modernism and the Kharkiv School of Photography. At the same time, this city has been under massive Russian shelling for the third year in a row. Holding the exhibition here, and precisely now, is an act of resistance. The global artistic premiere is happening here. It gives hope for overcoming the isolation caused by war and opens a space for reflection, dreams, and new possibilities. This year, Wolfgang Tillmans has three solo exhibitions: in Dresden, in his hometown of Remscheid, and another one opening in Paris in June. And in between them is Kharkiv, which, despite the war, remains an important cultural marker on the international art map.
"In Ukraine, there is a notable rise in reportage photography. We wanted to show photography as an artistic medium, not just as a documentation of pain, but as a space for thought and reflection; to support the continuity of the development of photographic culture. This exhibition is about how art can offer ways to form, or at least not lose, the hope to think about the future."
