‘This exhibition is hard and beautiful’: staging a major retrospective of Boris Mikhailov’s work

The ‘Red’ series is a collection of photographs taken in Kharkiv containing the colour red, a symbol of the revolution. Photograph: © Boris Mikhaïlov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Tate: Acquis avec l'aide du Art Fund (avec la contribution de la Wolfson Foundation) et Konstantin Grigorishin 2011

When Paris’s art curators met to discuss staging a major retrospective of Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov’s work, none could have guessed how prescient and tragic its eventual timing would turn out to be – or how his depictions of the poverty of the Soviet Union and the grim hardship of its aftermath would take on new meaning following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the razing of his home town, Kharkiv, which features in so many of his photographs.

Boris Mikhailov. The depictions of the poverty of the Soviet Union and the grim hardship of its aftermath would take on new meaning following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Photograph: Araki