The Reading Warehouse

A signed, limited edition of Boris Mikhailov's portrait of contemporary Eastern and Western Europe

In this hefty photobook, published in an edition of 500 copies, the celebrated Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov (born 1938) mixes earlier pictures with photographs from 2017 that were taken in a Soviet-era crematorium in Kyiv. Other settings featured here include the crumbling corners of East and West European cities, private bedrooms and public hospitals, gardens and bars.

Across more than 200 photographic diptychs, Mikhailov draws connections between histories and technologies, while playfully stressing formal correlations between motifs. Where earlier artist's books by Mikhailov, such as Case History and Unfinished Dissertation, explored life on Ukrainian streets or under Soviet rule, now, with Temptation of Life, he offers a more philosophical account of the everyday, of the perishability of all flesh, on sex, life and death.