Artist Statement
I have been writing poetry, taking pictures and documenting my life and surroundings since my teenage years. Inspired by Mayakovsky and Rimbaud, I wanted to live my life through art, and I wanted my life to become art, too.
I've always felt limited by any particular genre or medium. That's why I expanded my creative practice first beyond text, then beyond photography and a two-dimensional image. Just like my writings, I want my visual art to tell stories of real people, real emotions and experiences.
Coming from a conservative and oppressive Soviet background, I’m trying to examine the very concept of ‘shame’ by being completely ‘shameless.’
I’m a voyeur, a retired exhibitionist. I enjoy documenting people in intimate, vulnerable situations. This way I can much better capture their true selves. The personal connection with my subjects is essential to my work, and I'd never ask them to do something that I wouldn’t have done myself.
I look for a primal beauty and innocence in unconventional and often explicit scenes that might be considered ‘obscene,’ ‘shocking,’ or ‘perverse’—like a guy sniffing another guy’s armpit, a boy with a cucumber up his ass, or German skinheads spitting and pissing on each other...
The point is, my subjects must be totally comfortable with me and my camera in order for me to photograph them. It’s about collaboration in a very broad sense. It's about mutual trust and compassion. It's about love and beauty in different shapes and forms. It's about search for a new language and sensibility.
I find these kinds of scenes totally engaging and inspiring, and I don’t need anyone’s moral approval of my work. As Rimbaud once proclaimed, ‘Morality is a type of brain disease!’
I’ve always enjoyed breaking taboos and stereotypes. I think that’s what real art is about, and I've paid my dues for expressing myself in the most radical and honest way.
Slava Mogutin, NYC, September 2011