Generations / Igor Mukhin / Bergger éditions

a book by BERGGER Editions

Generations

IGOR MUKHIN

from the USSR to the new Russia / 1985 - 2021

Since his beginnings in photography, Igor Mukhin has tirelessly questioned the Moscow street and, with Generations, gives us the history of 35 years

of societal transformations in Russia.

These photos born out of the counter-cultural movement take a long hard look at Russia and present a frank and unvarnished view of their subjects. From Gorbachev to Putin, via the transition period and Boris Yeltsin, Igor Mukhin spans the generations always managing to preserve the distance that comes from being on the margin. Everyone - people who feel nostalgia for communism, the partisans of a return to order, the consumer elite and people downtrodden by the new system, not forgetting representatives of the forces of repression and the various forms of counter-power, has passed in front of his camera.

excerpt from the foreword by Michaël Houlette,

director of Robert Doisneau House

1985 - 1991 : The sovietic underground

Babushkas still wear headscarves and old men sport shapeless jumpers, or jackets covered in medals, while their messy-haired granddaughters insolently exhibit their tattooed mons veneris. Marxist-Leninist ideology was already no more than a part of the scenery, made even more absurd by its pomposity.

Paola Messana - excerpt of text 1985

1991 - 2000 / The Yeltsin Years

The Yeltsin years… The greatest upheaval that the country has known since the October revolution. “The USSR is dead”. On December 8th 1991, Boris Yelstsin and three other leaders bluntly announced the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Paola Messana - excerpt from text 1991

2000 - 2021 / The new Russia

Even if the oligarchs controlled the country and, or so we thought, Putin would be their puppet, the financial crisis of 1998 was behind us and the battle for the control of the country’s riches was over. It was the end of the 90s, the end of a decade of uncertainty and the selling off of assets.

Julie Moulin - excerpt from text 2000

At a time when the daily lives of Russians are changing at breakneck speed, who can predict what the Russia of tomorrow will be like - a Russia after Putin, whose time in office stretches back to the end of the last century and seems likely to continue through the next decade? Who could possibly want to know what Moscow has in store for them the next day, the following evening or even in the next few hours?

Caroline Gaujard-Larson, excerpt from text 2021

Generations - from the USSR to the new Russia

Igor Mukhin

Edition of 500 copies // 166 are already booked

Pre-order the book

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The book with a numbered signed print by Igor Mukhin 13 x 18 cm

Special edition of 15 copies

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180€ instead of 230€

Technical informations

128 pages - 109 photographs

20 x 28 cm

Removable jacket cover

ISBN : 978-2-9572377-0-8

Publication : July 2021

Igor Mukhin (b. 1961) is one of the most important and influential Russian authors today. He teaches at the Rodchenko School in Moscow.

His photographs are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Tretyakov Gallery and the MAMM (Moscow), the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (France), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington) and many private collections.

Igor Mukhin

Around the book - Igor Mukhin's exhibitions

Generations - from the USSR to the new Russia // Exhibition at Robert Doisneau House

Photographs by Igor Mukhin. Silver gelatin modern prints by Fred Goyeau on Bergger baryta paper.

21 October 2021 - 16 January 2022 // Gentilly

My 80 & 90 years // Exhibition at Polka Gallery

Photographs by Igor Mukhin. Vintages prints.

Fall 2021 // Paris