Hanging with Slava

Slava Mogutin

Come hang out with NY-based Russian exile artist and author Slava Mogutin as he presents his latest photography book, Bros & Brosephines, and discusses his illustrious work.

ABOUT THE BOOK & CONTRIBUTORS

Over the past two decades, the exiled Russian artist Slava Mogutin has gained international acclaim for his gritty, candid portrayal of disaffected youth and documentation of alternative urban subcultures, as well as his writings, multimedia work, and political activism. Bros & Brosephines is a survey of Mogutin’s studio and fashion photography, commissioned portraits, and previously unpublished images. From his early raw analog snapshots to elaborate compositions, sets, and post-production, the book offers Mogutin’s signature explosive blend of art, fashion, and fetish, transcending and dissecting the conventional notions of beauty and masculinity. The monograph also features Mogutin’s collaborations with fellow artists, including Brian Kenny, Gio Black Peter, Andrey Bartenev, Asher Levine, Martin Elmasflaco, Sebastien Meunier, François Sagat, Jan Wandrag, and many more.

Slava Mogutin is a Siberian-born, New York-based multimedia artist, author, and filmmaker exiled from Russia for his outspoken queer writings and activism. A third-generation writer and self-taught journalist and photographer, he became the first Russian to be granted political asylum in the U.S. on the grounds of homophobic persecution. He is the author of seven books of writings in Russian, as well as two critically acclaimed monographs of photography, Lost Boys and NYC Go-Go (powerHouse Books, 2006/2008), and a collection of poetry, Food Chain (ITNA Press, 2014).

Zackary Drucker is an independent artist, cultural producer, and trans woman who breaks down the way we think about gender, sexuality, and seeing. She has performed and exhibited her work internationally in museums, galleries, and film festivals including the Whitney Biennial 2014, MoMA PS1, Hammer Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, MCA San Diego, and SF MoMA, among others. Drucker is an Emmy-nominated producer for the docu-series, This Is Me, as well as a producer on Golden Globe and Emmy-winning Transparent.

David J. Getsy is the Goldabelle McComb Finn Distinguished Professor of Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His books include Abstract Bodies: Sixties Sculpture in the Expanded Field of Gender (Yale University Press, 2015), Scott Burton: Collected Writings on Art and Performance, 1965–1975 (Soberscove Press, 2012), From Diversion to Subversion: Games, Play, and Twentieth-Century Art (Penn State University Press, 2011), Rodin: Sex and the Making of Modern Sculpture (Yale University Press, 2010), and, most recently, the anthology Queer for the Whitechapel Gallery’s Documents of Contemporary Art book series (MIT Press, 2016).

Bruce LaBruce is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, photographer, writer, and artist based in Toronto. He’s the author of several books including The Reluctant Pornographer (1998) and Porn Diaries: How To Succeed in Hardcore Without Really Trying (2016), and the subject of two monographs about his work, Ride, Queer, Ride (1998) and Bruce(x)ploitation (2014). He’s the writer and director of eleven feature films including Hustler White, L.A. Zombie, Gerontophilia, The Misandrists, and Skin Flick starring Slava Mogutin. All of LaBruce’s films have been included in MoMA’s permanent collection after being featured in a museum retrospective in 2015.