The best photographers of the country Igor Mukhin. Igor Mukhin

Igor Vladimirovich Mukhin was born in 1961 in Moscow. From 1977 to 1981 he studied at the construction institute.

since 1987 - member of the l / o "Hermitage".

in 1989-91 - member of the Direct Photography group

since 1990 - member of the Union of Photographers of Moscow

since 1993 - member of the Union of Photographers of Russia

since 1994 - Member of the International Federation of Artists (IFA).

Igor Mukhin is one of the brightest modern Russian photographers. He started his creative activity in the mid 80s. He held his first solo exhibition in 1987 (120 works, at Moscow State University), at the height of perestroika. In 1988, Igor Mukhin began to cooperate with the RAPNO agency (Paris). Actively works with many publishing houses, performing documentary photography related to the history of the Russian contemporary art. In 1989 Igor Mukhin started working as a freelance photographer.

In the late 80s, he created a series of photographs "Fragments" "Monuments", which immediately positioned the photographer as one of the leaders of the new Russian photography. Both projects are dedicated to the fragments of the Soviet empire, which reminded of itself through the rapidly decaying Soviet monumental propaganda.

The next series, conceived by the artist as an alternative to the "big" style - "Bench". However, despite the intimacy, the genre of the theme itself, artistic decision here it retains its scale, energetic angle, close-ups, so that the benches appear as the same "monuments".

The work of Igor Mukhin is the most complete and vivid reflection of the first decade of Russian capitalism. At this stage, it acquires a filigree sharpness and a cinematic experience of time within a static frame. In 1996, his series "Lovers" appears, which is a conscious gesture of opposition to the hostilities that began in Chechnya. This project has become a kind of hallmark of the new Russian photography, finally freed from the global myths "we are the happiest" or "we are the most unhappy".

In 1999, Igor Mukhin works in Paris, having received a scholarship from the city of Paris as part of an artist exchange program between the mayor's offices of Moscow and Paris. At the same time, he receives a grant to photograph French youth from the French Ministry of Culture for a project dedicated to the celebration of the third millennium. This is how the series "Paris" appears.

Igor Mukhin explores the topic photographic image, and his photographic result is a hypothetical point of intersection between the "live" style and the rigidity of "staging", which often turns the ordinary into the mystical, and the mystical into the ordinary in his photographs...

Daughter Masha, son Maxim

Personal exhibitions of Igor Mukhin:

1987 "For young about young" club of the Moscow State University.

1988 "Igor Mukhin" Uralmash, Sverdlovsk.

1989 "Igor Mukhin" Photo gallery, Kuibyshev.

1989 "Igor Mukhin" Photojournalist Club, Ukhta.

1990 "Igor Mukhin" gallery "Interfoto", Leningrad.

1993 "Study of the Soviet monumental art"photo gallery, Yoshkar-Ola, Russia (booklet).

1994 "Bench: transformation for the future" gallery XL, Moscow (catalogue).

1995 "40 photographs" Museum of the Revolution, Moscow (catalogue);

"Vision of Russia" Grote Kerk, Naarden Fotofestival, Netherlands (catalogue)

1996 "Life in the city" Latvian Museum of Photography, Riga, Latvia;

"Changed Landscape" Gallery of Moscow (Photobiennale-96), Moscow (catalog).

1997 "Moscow, Moscow", club "Slepenais experementa", Riga, Latvia;

"Soviet era: Benches and Monuments" Photohouse, Riga, Latvia;

"Crossing" Goethe Institute, Moscow;

"Park of Culture. Memory" KUKART-III International Festival, Tsarskoye Selo;

"V. Semin and I. Mukhin: Contemporary Russian Photography" The Camera Obscura Gallery, Denver, USA;

"Moscow: city and people" LEK, Ljubljana, Slovenia (catalogue);

"Igor Mukhin" Galeria Gerulta, Month of Photography in Bratislava, Slovakia (catalogue).

1998 "Youth in big city"Manege, Photobiennale-1998, Moscow (catalog)

"Moscou la Jenne" Bibliotheque Elsa-Triolet, Pantin, France (catalogue);

"Moscou", MJC du Lau, Pau, France.

1999 "Nonstop" Gallery XL, Moscow (catalogue);

"Igor Mukhin", Gallery Carre Noir, Paris;

"Children's Playground" gallery M. Gelman, Moscow;

"Girls", Gallery XL, Moscow (catalogue).

2000 "Paris as it is", foyer concert hall Russia Moscow;

"Between the Lines" INVOGUE, Moscow;

"Paris", Month of photography in Paris. Gallery Carre Noir, Paris.

2001 "Moscow Light", Shchusev Museum of Architecture, Moscow.

2002 "Moscow-Paris", MDF, Moscow;

"Relations", N.Novgorod - Samara - Novosibirsk - Yekaterinburg;

Moscow. International photography festival, Pingyao, China (catalogue);

"Nizhny Novgorod", Summer 2001. Pro-vision photography festival. Nizhny Novgorod (Catalogue).

In the late 1980s, Mukhin filmed Grebenshchikov, Tsoi, Mamonov and Bashlachev, and in the 1990s and 2000s he recorded the life of Moscow in all its manifestations - rallies and parties, blizzards and smog, passers-by, prostitutes relaxing on the beach, communists, fashionistas, Nashists. As a result, all this turned into the book "My Moscow".

- When "My Moscow" was just being prepared, you said that this would be the result: thus the project "Igor Mukhin - Photographer of Moscow" is being completed. And how did it end? Are you happy?

- Now it's hard to say. Still, a stage: twenty-five years. Then a book is not an exhibition where you correct something to the last - you re-hang it, remove it or change it, and you can continue this practice of permanent improvement at the next exhibition. No, the book is everything; I can't just go and tear out a couple of pages if they suddenly stop liking me? But for a very long time this whole story with the publication lasted. During this time, you have time to go through the whole range of emotions and hassle - from euphoria that the book will even be, cheers, to indifference “it will, it won’t”, because inside everything fell after these “remove two spreads”, “set two spreads”, Looks like she doesn't even need it anymore. And just at that moment, she still appears.

How many photographs are included in the book?

- About two hundred.

- Could it be possible?

Well, two hundred and ten.

- What about fifty?

- Put away?

- No, leave it. Could you leave fifty? Or ten? And one? To what extent can this material be sublimated at all?

- Kind of a dumb question. Everything depends on conditions. You can try to exhibit the material that went into the book in some prestigious Parisian cellar, or you can in some little-known Moscow hall, but with a ceiling of twelve meters - each time it will be a different scale of prints, a different number.

The question may be stupid. But here is Cartier-Bresson: towards the end of his life, he took a certain number of pictures, very, very few, out of those tens or hundreds of thousands that he shot in general, and said: this is Cartier-Bresson. And we never publish the rest, and even more so, we don’t sign the name of Cartier-Bresson.

— In the case of Cartier-Bresson, I think big role played the fact that he was actually an artist who became a photographer. And he has a specific attitude to a separate card. He does not have such detailed stories as, say, Boris Mikhailov or Larry Clark, when you are shown how many frames preceded and how many followed the one that, in fact, sums up the shooting. For Cartier-Bresson, these are tears invisible to the world, it does not count. Although I saw something similar among the photographs that he brought from a business trip to the Soviet Union. Here comes Cartier-Bresson to Suzdal. On the way, fishermen under the bridge attract him with something - and you can clearly see how he gets out of the car, tries once, twice. And this frame with the fishermen remains. And as soon as he arrived in Suzdal, no matter how much they took him, he didn’t take anything at all.

- For the book, you chose photos from a mass of pictures, right? And these latter, before remaining in the negatives, were also selected, weren't they? Well, the shooting itself, after all, it is also the result of a choice: I shoot it, but this one doesn’t? And the book is called "My Moscow". Mukhinskaya, that is, but not in general. Which again is a choice.

- In this sense - yes, the art of choice rules. Of course, everything is preceded by analysis: any event, especially in Moscow, is photographed not by one photographer, but by dozens, and sometimes hundreds, and you can always find out after the fact how Petya and Seryozha were filming, as well as Lena, who was standing behind you. Accordingly, I will not shoot either this way or that. I looked and thought about what approach photographers use when shooting Rome, Berlin, Paris. And then there was just a rational grid - what to spend the film and time on. For example, in Moscow there are dogs. But Erwitt has a lot of dogs. Is it worth it to compete with Erwitt dogs by filming dogs in Moscow? While dogs are divided into domestic dogs, which means you can go to dog shows and explore all sorts of other places where dogs gather, and there are stray dogs that Erwitt does not have - because there simply are none in the West. It turns out that at first we boldly cross out the “Dogs” item, but then the understanding comes that dogs are different. Etc. Not all items are being developed, some never reach the hands. For example, there are children in the city, you can shoot children - although children, in fact, now you can’t just shoot in the civilized world, you need the consent of the parents. Therefore, we also exclude children.

“Cartier-Bresson is going to Suzdal. On the way, fishermen attract him with something. And this frame with the fishermen remains. And as soon as he arrived in Suzdal, no matter how much they took him, he didn’t take anything at all ”

- That is, you, as an experienced fisherman, do not go at random, but always know where, when, for what and with what?

- Like “nothing will happen in the center on Monday” - there is no need to take a film, but I’ll take a figure anyway. There are Western authors who visit Moscow and work with fixers. Fixers are those people, quite expensive, who inspect, search for and prepare, as far as possible, a session of a photographer. They come in waves: there is the first wave of fixers who look at people, places, and there are fixers who arrive a week before the photographer. So that later the photographer himself can appear where and when necessary, for a short period of time, when everything is already organized. There are such agencies - like, we will help you to rent Moscow. How else? I've been living in Moscow for half a century, but I don't know where Luzhkov bathes. Well, I went swimming. Meanwhile, Luzhkov in the hole is a fairly common story among photographers from the same Magnum. How does a person living in New York or Paris suddenly find out where Luzhkov bathes - on this very day, at this hour, in this ice-hole, in this huge Moscow? There are some ways of obtaining - for money, of course - such information. But I don't have the money to get that information. And I'm undertaking research: what can I shoot in Everyday life such that there was also Moscow? Such a competition may be uncomfortable for me, but I am forced to post such a product that would be no worse, would be remembered.

— Is there a difference between shooting for you and for yourself?

- This is a fundamental difference, I tell my students the same thing: there is creative photography, and there is to order. In my relation to them - the earth and the sky. I don’t even hold commissioned shooting - I hand over the negatives and remember them, except when they ask me to take the fee. Or - I will send the files and immediately rub the source. Another thing is when for yourself. Any product is a very strong energy cost. You can arrange such a shooting for yourself that you can’t get up afterwards. Moreover, I didn’t even take anything off - something stuck, the film was exposed, - but the event happened, you got involved in it. I teach, I put everything on the shelves, and I have another term for students - distance. The distance is regulated by how ready you are to get involved and lose this energy. There is a distance that is comfortable for Cartier-Bresson - it allows him not to get involved in people's lives, to go unnoticed; there are pictures of Cartier-Bresson "before" and "after" famous, canonical shots - how people reacted to him while he was shooting his one Cartier-Bresson card. On him and about three others, who was with him at that moment - some accompanying Chekist, translator, someone else. But you can get involved. To do this, you take the Cartier-Bresson distance, take two or three more steps - and you're done, you get involved. Then a lot of nuances. A black camera on a black T-shirt will not be noticeable - but you can put on a white T-shirt, take a bright red camera, and from a kilometer away it will be clear that this is a photographer; this is if we do not hide, but designate ourselves. But in custom shooting, you can rely on at least a stamp. And here. A real horror when you realize that you don’t take the camera in your hands, because you have already achieved something, and these results, most likely, will not be surpassed by you yourself. That the level you reached once, you may not reach another time.

- These are the achievements, they are connected with some specific cards, right?

- Then we return approximately to the beginning of the conversation: how many such cards does the photographer collect?

- Seven. For the whole life.

Is this some kind of sacred number?

- No. Although I like the number seven. But if we now just take a dozen or two photographers - from those whose names come to mind, but so that you do not leaf through their albums the day before - then we will hardly remember the eighth, ninth, eleventh card. Or cognac will have to drink.

— No, only for the author. Here you are shooting in the city, walking, looking, but at the same time you constantly remember that among those seven there is already one such. I say I shoot for myself. Because to regard a photograph as a kind of message, you have to admit that this is a message to the grandfather of the village. Well, or the same as you, "the reader of the letter." But for this, even shooting is not always necessary; it's like when we walk with Pinkhasov: you push him in the side - they say, look - and he understands everything anyway.

Afisha’s expert council includes Moscow art and photo directors and gallery owners Cast: Maxim Balabin, Natalia Ganelina, Nina Gomiashvili, Natalia Grigoryeva, Vladimir Dudchenko, Anna Zekria, Alexander Zemlyanchenko, Alexander Lapin, Irina Meglinskaya, Victoria Musvik, Maxim Nikanorov, Mikhail Smetana, Maria Sorokina, Artem Chernov, Anna Shpakova

Lives and works in Moscow.

After graduating from a construction college, he works at a design institute, evening studies at MISI (not completed), work as an inspector at VOKhR. In 1986-1987 he visited classes at the Art Photography Studio of Alexander Lapin , in 1986-1987 he collaborated in rock samizdat. In 1987, A. Lapin held the first personal exhibition of Mukhin in the House of Culture of Moscow State University, after the exhibition, Lapin's studio at Moscow State University was closed. Since 1987 he has been a member of the Immediate Photography group. In 1989, he quit his job and started working as an independent/free-lance photographer. Since 2010 he has been teaching at the Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia named after V.I. A. Rodchenko.

Retrospective solo exhibitions of Igor Mukhin: "Alternative culture of the 80s". Multimedia Art Museum (Moscow. 2017), “I saw rock and roll”. State museum and exhibition center ROSPHOTO (St. Petersburg. 2016), Retrospective at Festival RussenKo (Le Kremlin-Bic è tre. France. 2013), State Russian Museum (Stroganov Palace. St. Petersburg. 2003).

Works are in collections: State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), Museum Moscow House of Photography / MAMM (Moscow), ROSPHOTO (St. Petersburg), Moscow Museum of Modern Art, State Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchuseva, (Moscow), Museum of Moscow, The Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA), The Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington D.C., USA),Maison Europeenne de la Photographie(Paris, France), FNAC. Fonds National d’ Art Contemporian (Paris, France), Museum of Fine Art (Santa Fe, USA ), The Baltimore Museum of Art ( Maryland, USA), Denver Art Museum (Denver, USA), Wien Museum (Vienna), Leica Camera Collection (Russia), etc.

In 1999 he received a scholarship from the City Hall of Paris and worked on the theme "Lovers in Paris" commissioned by F.N.A.C. with the participation of the "Committee for the celebration of the year 2000" (France).

Two-time winner of the Silver Camera contest (Moscow House of Photography) for the best reportage about Moscow.

In 2003 he was selected as the photographer of the year (project: man of the decade), according to Rambler.

Author's books

- "Avoir 20 ans a Moscou". Editions Alternatives (Paris. 1998)

- "Wien Vienna Vienna". Text by Peter Weiermair, Constantin Bokhrov. Krinzinger Projekte(Vienna, 2004)

- "Born in the USSR". Ed. Leonid Gusev. (Moscow. 2005)

- "My Moscow". Text: Zakhar Prilepin. Trimedia. (Moscow. 2012)

- “My Moscow”. Schilt Publishing (Amsterdam. 2012)

- “Igor Moukhin. Photographies 1987 - 2011". Editions Loco(Paris. 2012)

- “MOSCOW_2. La Boheme". Samizdat (Moscow, 2015)

- “Resistance. Lost in Translation. Samizdat (Moscow, 2015)

- "I've seen rock and roll." Texts: Ekaterina Zueva, Felix Sandalov. Treemedia publishing house (Moscow, 2016)

- "Born in the USSR" (Reissue). Texts: Ekaterina Degot, Steve Yates. Treemedia publishing house (Moscow, 2016)

- Calculation. Treemedia publishing house (Moscow. 2017)

- Weekend. Texts: Alexandra Novozhenova, Felix Sandalov. Treemedia publishing house (Moscow. 2017)

- "Just pie in the sky." Extract from the preface by Bastien Manac'h. Bergger editions(Paris. 2017)

Personal exhibitions (selection)

"ALTERNATIVE CULTURE of the 80s". As part of the X Moscow International Biennale "Fashion and Style in Photography 2017". Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow 2017
"I've seen rock 'n' roll." State Museum and Exhibition Center ROSPHOTO, St. Petersburg, 2016
MOSCOW_2. La Boheme". Gallery "LUDA", St. Petersburg, 2015
Igor Mukhin "Punk-Faction 1", Alisa Yoffe "Punk-Faction 2". Triumph Gallery, Moscow, 2014
"My Moscow". CARRÉ AMELOT, Espace Culturel de la Ville de La Rochelle, France, 2013
Igor Moukhin "La mia Mosca/My Moscow". Curated by Elio Grazioli, Laura Bulian Gallery, Milan, Italy, 2013
Igor Moukhin "My Moscow". Galerie RTR, Paris, France, 2013

Retrospective "La Russie d'Igor Moukhin, photographies de 1987 à 2012". Grand Réservoir de L'Hôpital de Bicêtre(Festival RussenKo 2013), Le Kremlin-Bicètre. France, 2013
"PROGOROD. Krasnogorsk region. (Together with S. Leontiev and A. Gronsky). Fence of the Mechanical Plant, st. River, Krasnogorsk, 2012
“Presentation of the book and iPad application by Igor Mukhin “My Moscow”. Gallery Meglinskaya. Winzavod, Moscow, 2012
La mia Mosca. Festival Fotografia Europea 2012. San Pietro Cloisters. Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2012
"Rosja/Polska (Igor Mukhin i Mariusz Forecki)" 4th Festiwal Fotodokumentu, Galeria Wysokich Napięć. Warsaw, Poland, 2012
“Accomplices”, XL Gallery, Moscow, 2012
"Igor Mukhin", MIA Milan Image Art Fair. Milan, Italy, 2011
Igor Mukhin. "E difficile essere giovani/Being young is difficult". Galleria Impronte contemporary art, Milan, Italy, 2010
"Garden". As part of the "Photobiennale 2010". Gallery Meglinskaya, Winzavod, Moscow, 2010
Igor Mukhin. Resistance» XL Gallery, Center Winzavod, Moscow, 2010
Generation next. Auditorium parco della musica (Festival Russo), Rome. Italy, 2004
"Moscow - Paris". State Russian Museum, Stroganov Palace. St. Petersburg, 2003
"Moscow - Paris", Moscow House of Photography, 2002
Moscow Light. Museum of Architecture. A.V. Shchuseva, Moscow, 2001
Igor Mukhin. 40 photographs. Revolution Museum, Moscow, 1995
"Young about the young." Organizer: Alexander Lapin. Sports club of Moscow State University, Moscow, USSR, 1987

Group exhibitions (optional)

"Subjective Objective: A Century of Social Photography". Zimmerli Art Museum. The State University of New Jersey, USA, 2017
"Red Horizon: Contemporary Art and Photography From USSR and Russia: 1960 - 2010", Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, USA, 2017
"Encyclopedia of Photography (1891-1991)". Pavilion No. 15 "Radioelectronics". VDNH, Moscow, 2016
"Contemporary Art: 1960-2000. Reboot". State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, 2016
"90s". Art Gallery, Yeltsin Center. Yekaterinburg, 2015
"New Arrivals: Late 20th-Century Photographs from Russia & Belarus". The Baltimore Museum of Art, USA, 2015
"Own Land / Foreign Territory", "Manege". As part of the Sixth Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2015
Alertes! Soutenez les Pussy Riot…”. Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, 2012
Monuments and Documents, permanent exhibition State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, 2012
"Perestroika Liberalization and Experimentation(mid/late 1980s-2010s)" Winter Street Studios. FotoFest 2012 Biennial, Houston, Texas, USA, 2012
"Boris Yeltsin and his time". Moscow House of Photography, Moscow, 2011
"Mikhail Gorbachev. Perestroika. Central Exhibition Hall "Manege", Moscow, 2011
"The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today". The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA, 2010
"Photographie de la nouvelle Russie 1990-2010". Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, Paris, France, 2010

Work with publications

Poster, Big City, Light, Foto&Video, TimeOut, Playboy, Rolling stone, Geo, ELLE, VOGUE, GALA, Icons, Harper's Bazaar, Le Monde, Liberation, Esquire, etc.

Collections

State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), Museum Moscow House of Photography / MAMM (Moscow), ROSPHOTO (St. Petersburg), Moscow Museum of Modern Art, State Museum of Architecture. A.V. Shchuseva, (Moscow), Museum of Moscow, The Museum of Modern Art(New York, USA), The Corcoran Gallery of Art(Washington D.C., USA), Maison Europeenne de la Photographie(Paris, France), FNAC. Fonds National d'Art Contemporian(Paris, France), Museum of Fine Art(Santa Fe, USA), The Baltimore Museum of Art(Maryland, USA), Denver Art Museum(Denver, USA), The Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum(Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, USA), The Adams Center for Photographic Research & Study in Manchester, New Hampshire Institute of Art(USA), Harry Ransom Humanities research Center, the University of Texas at Austin(USA), The Equity International Photography Collection in Chicago(Illinois, USA), Wien Museum (Vienna), Leica Camera Collection (Russia), etc.

Website

At the School. Rodchenko is the head of the workshop "Direct photography" and the course "Author's style in photography" of the additional educational program.

Igor Vladimirovich Mukhin was born in 1961 in Moscow. From 1977 to 1981 he studied at the construction institute.

since 1987 - member of the l / o "Hermitage".

in 1989-91 - member of the Direct Photography group

since 1990 - member of the Union of Photographers of Moscow

since 1993 - member of the Union of Photographers of Russia

since 1994 - Member of the International Federation of Artists (IFA).

Igor Mukhin is one of the brightest contemporary Russian photographers. He began his creative activity in the mid-80s. He held his first solo exhibition in 1987 (120 works, at Moscow State University), at the height of perestroika. In 1988, Igor Mukhin began to cooperate with the RAPNO agency (Paris). He actively works with many publishing houses, performing documentary photography related to the history of Russian contemporary art. In 1989 Igor Mukhin started working as a freelance photographer.

The next series, conceived by the artist as an alternative to the "big" style - "Bench". However, despite the intimacy, genre nature of the theme itself, the artistic solution here retains its scale, energetic angle, close-ups, so that the benches appear as the same "monuments".

Igor Mukhin explores the theme of the photographic image, and his photographic result is a hypothetical intersection point between "live" style and the rigidity of "staging", which often turns the ordinary into the mystical in his photographs, and the mystical into the ordinary...

Daughter Masha, son Maxim

Personal exhibitions of Igor Mukhin:

1987 "For young about young" club of the Moscow State University.

1988 "Igor Mukhin" Uralmash, Sverdlovsk.

1989 "Igor Mukhin" Photo gallery, Kuibyshev.

1989 "Igor Mukhin" Photojournalist Club, Ukhta.

1990 "Igor Mukhin" gallery "Interfoto", Leningrad.

1993 "Study of Soviet monumental art" photo gallery, Yoshkar-Ola, Russia (booklet).

1994 "Bench: transformation for the future" gallery XL, Moscow (catalogue).

1995 "40 photographs" Museum of the Revolution, Moscow (catalogue);

"Vision of Russia" Grote Kerk, Naarden Fotofestival, Netherlands (catalogue)

1996 "Life in the city" Latvian Museum of Photography, Riga, Latvia;

"Changed Landscape" Gallery of Moscow (Photobiennale-96), Moscow (catalog).

1997 "Moscow, Moscow", club "Slepenais experementa", Riga, Latvia;

"Soviet Era: Benches and Monuments" Photohouse, Riga, Latvia;

"Crossing" Goethe Institute, Moscow;

"Park of Culture. Memory" KUKART-III International Festival, Tsarskoye Selo;

"V. Semin and I. Mukhin: Contemporary Russian Photography" The Camera Obscura Gallery, Denver, USA;

"Moscow: city and people" LEK, Ljubljana, Slovenia (catalogue);

"Igor Mukhin" Galeria Gerulta, Month of Photography in Bratislava, Slovakia (catalogue).

1998 "Youth in the Big City" Manege, Photobiennale-1998, Moscow (catalogue)

"Moscou la Jenne" Bibliotheque Elsa-Triolet, Pantin, France (catalogue);

"Moscou", MJC du Lau, Pau, France.

1999 "Nonstop" Gallery XL, Moscow (catalogue);

"Igor Mukhin", Gallery Carre Noir, Paris;

"Children's Playground" gallery M. Gelman, Moscow;

"Girls", Gallery XL, Moscow (catalogue).

2000 "Paris as it is", foyer of the concert hall Russia, Moscow;

"Between the Lines" INVOGUE, Moscow;

"Paris", Month of photography in Paris. Gallery Carre Noir, Paris.

2001 "Moscow Light", Shchusev Museum of Architecture, Moscow.

2002 "Moscow-Paris", MDF, Moscow;

"Relations", N.Novgorod - Samara - Novosibirsk - Yekaterinburg;

Moscow. International photography festival, Pingyao, China (catalogue);

Igor Mukhin

Biography: 1977-1981 studied at the construction college.

1981-1987 worked as a technician in a design organization.

1985 acquaintance with Alexander Lapin and Alexei Shulgin.

1986 collaboration with various artists for samizdat magazines; participation in the first group exhibition on Malaya Gruzinskaya street, 28. Acquaintance with Piganov, Efimov and Alexander Slyusarev.

1987 First personal exhibition, 120 works, at Moscow State University.

1988 Trip to Finland at the invitation of the University applied arts in Helsinki; starts working with RAPHO photo agency, Paris

1989 starts working as a freelance photographer; a trip to Paris and London (in Paris he meets Garik Pinkhasov. Becomes a member of the Immediate Photography group, Moscow.

1990 Acquaintance with Tatyana Lieberman.

1991 A series of 32 photographs of Moscow views for the book "Bulgakov's Places in Moscow" for the Biblioteca del Vestello in Rome; the birth of daughter Masha; teaches at the Free Ukrainian Photo Academy in Kyiv, organized by Alexander Levitsky; a trip around Switzerland during the Moscow-Zurich photo project; work on 30 portraits of contemporary Soviet artists for the exhibition catalog "Art Books".

1992 Work on the anthology "Baltic Waves" for the publication "Bra Bocker A.B.", Sweden

1994 State Prize of Russia "Man of Art".

1999 Prize of the Mayor of Paris and work on the project "Lovers in Paris" commissioned by FNAC with the participation of the 2000 Celebration Committee, France.

Igor Mukhin is one of the artists who were lucky to be in right place V right time, - with a camera in hand.
His work is valuable and works of art, and as the most honest chronicle.

Since 1987, Mukhin has regularly exhibited in Moscow galleries and traveled abroad as a bright representative contemporary Russian photography. He shoots the ruins - literally and figuratively. The skeletons of old benches, crumbling monuments of the era of socialism - all these sickles and hammers, peasant women with ears of corn and pigs, figures of leaders with a cap or a raised hand. Even when Mukhin photographs people - street passers-by, lovers, rockers - they turn out like twilight shadows of a life that no longer exists. These are outcasts, their world is on the sidelines, on the outskirts of the city, in residential areas, or - even better - in the provinces. It's great that the stormy secular entertainment, which is enough now in Moscow (presentations, clubs, casinos, etc.) - Mukhin is not inspired. He examines not the facade, but the backyards, and finds there not only the eternal dirt and dump - but also the characters, the boiling of passions, such faces and temperaments that any theater could envy.

Born in the USSR: