Mikhail Alexandrovich Mikhaltchuk

Solo Exhibitions
1990 — Editorial office of the magazine "Knowledge is Power", Moscow; Ark Theatre, Moscow.
1992 — "Training the Body" (with V. Salnikov), Institute of Philosophy, RAS, Moscow
1993 — Series of solo shows under the "Multiportrait" program. Center for Contemporary Art Laboratory, Moscow
1995 — "Magnification in Miniature", AYDAN Gallery, Moscow
1996 — Creative evening of Viktor Brel, Design Club, Moscow
1997 — International Art Fair ART-MOSCOW, ISI. Central House of Artists, Moscow (catalog)
1998 — "Fashion Shop, or Romer's Lists", "Velta". Second International Month of Photography "Photobiennale-98", Moscow

Group Exhibitions
1991 — "Exhibition of the Union of Art Photographers of Russia", Moscow (award winner); "Act. Form and Image", Kaunas, Siauliai
1992 — "Tremplin pour des Images" (slide projection), Center National de la Photographie, Paris, France; "Experiences Photographiques Russes", "Mois de la Photo", L'Atrium de Grand Ecran (Place d'Italie), Paris, France
1992-93 — "Exhibition of the Union of Art Photographers of Russia", Central House of Artists, Moscow
1993 — Presentation of the agency "DIVO", "TA-IS" Gallery, Moscow; "A la Recherche du Pere", Espace Photographiques de Paris, Forum des Halles, Paris, France
1996 — "Photographs" (as part of "Photobiennale '96"), AYDAN Gallery, Moscow; Creative evening of Viktor Brel, Design Club, Moscow
1997 — "Photoestafeta: from Rodchenko to the Present Day", A-3 Gallery, Museum of Photographic Collections, Moscow; "Biography in Letters", Russian Cultural Center, Budapest, Hungary

I'll try to explain how I work. Once, a martial artist told me that when I photographed him, he felt as if we were engaged in a "sparring" session together. There was a certain psychological and energetic interaction between us. The result is not predetermined; it reflects the state we reach together. I once experimented by photographing people I wasn't interested in, using all my techniques to achieve interesting outcomes. The results were simply zero. Only genuine interest, which leads to interaction, enables any result. I don't know how this happens. I am not a director—I am an observer. I watch the process and at the right moment, I have to catch something by pressing the shutter. I do not embed any specific "idea" into my work. A fire is burning, something changes within it, and my job is only to catch something in time.

Misha Mikhaltchuk works in the genre of photographic portraiture—a tradition as old as photography itself. His brownish prints evoke the early days of photography, recalling the era of cardboard photo cards and stately figures. This suggests that concepts such as "time" and "memory" are vital to the modern photographer. However, this is not about retro styles or stylizations; the goals are different.

Mikhaltchuk's subjects are both like and unlike themselves—an eternal topic for discussion in artistic circles. His photographs seem to transform their original function: rather than objectively recording reality, they show us a reality with losses but also with a certain "added element." Figuratively, it's as if exposition is replaced by composition: the artist's work doesn't end with the click of the shutter, as the "photographe" yields to the "photopictor" who turns the seen into a vision. The "mechanical memory" of the film is complemented by the artist's imaginative memory, which "corrects" the impression. The result can be compared to a stereo image, created from several "temporal" outlines from whose interplay emerges an image equally related to "then," "before," and "someday." (M. Bode, "Then," "Before," "Someday." On the photographs of Mikhail Mikhaltchuk, Kommersant-Daily, March 15, 1995.)