PHOTOGRAPHER SLAVA MOGUTIN AIMS HIS CAMERA ON THE BOYS OF HIS MOTHER COUNTRY
Slava Mogutin scares me a little. I’m probably not supposed to admit that up front. I’ve seen photographs of him and he looks quite physically imposing, with the well-muscled physique of a former porn star. People who have met him describe him to me as having “presence.” And then there are his photographs of hot young boys fucking, which are nothing if not hard-core.
Mogutin’s latest book of photography, Lost Boys, brings him back to his native Russia, among other places. Deported at 21 on the grounds of “malicious hooliganism with exceptional cynicism and extreme insolence,” Mogutin was one of the last dissidents to be exiled by the old Communist regime. For those of you not well versed in Soviet euphemisms, that means Mogutin was kicked out of the country for being gay and public about it. Fortunately, that phrase also turns out to be a wonderful way of describing gleefully naughty behavior, and returning to Russia has been something of a moral victory for Mogutin, who admits “I still have nightmares about being arrested or stuck in Moscow. I guess I’ll have this persecution complex for the rest of my life.”
In Russia, Mogutin was known more as a poet, critic, and author of seven books with a cult following. It wasn’t until the photographer arrived in New York, where he currently resides, that he began taking photographs, and his visual aesthetic has a raw, downtown feel that he admits “is more appealing to the Western audience, although I still consider myself a Russian artist.” Finland might also be an appropriate reference—as in Tom of Finland—since Mogutin’s photographs of naked boys, almost always on their own in Lost Boys, have a dirtiness that is both hard-edged and nostalgic. Images of boys in soldier’s uniforms that would not look out of place in the 19th century (especially against Moscow’s snowy skyline) are seen along with sexual encounters in post-apocalyptic-looking abandoned factories and warehouses. They are frankly sexual, but they also reflect very real economic and political realities.
Though the photographs in this collection were taken in as many as seven countries, the dominant theme is Mogutin’s ambivalent feelings toward his former homeland after a decade abroad. “My Russian pictures are probably the most personal and sentimental ones. It’s such a sad place, sad but totally beautiful. You just don’t see sites and characters and faces and smiles like that anywhere else. They can be brutal and innocent at the same time. It’s such a cliché to show Russia as a totally grim and fucked-up place, so I really wanted to show a different Russia that is colorful, exciting, sexy, and full of crazy energy."
Which goes a long way toward describing Mogutin’s work in general. So maybe I’m not scared of him after all. How can I be scared of a man polite enough to take time out of a trip to Portugal to answer my questions? Let’s leave the fear to the authorities and embrace him as an ardent outlaw. Ken Miller
Photography Slava Mogutin
Lost Boys is out in October 2006 from powerHouse Books
