22 Russians Who We Won’t Let Vladimir Putin Forget Were Gay

From: Advocate

Ilya (Feet), Moscow, 2001,  from the Lost Boys Series

 Slava Mogutin 

b. 1974

Mogutin's brash, sexy, and gritty art and photography are at the core of the Downtown scene in New York. Born Yaroslav Yurievich Mogutin in the industrial city of Kemerovo, Siberia, he left his family at age 14 and moved to Moscow, where he began working as a journalist and editor. Mogutin dealt in controversy and defied authority so vehemently that by age 21, he was charged with “open and deliberate contempt for generally accepted moral norms,” “malicious hooliganism with exceptional cynicism and extreme insolence,” “inflaming social, national, and religious division,” “propaganda of brutal violence, psychic pathology, and sexual perversions.” So, yes. A bad boy.

Tattoos Graffiti, St. Peterburg, 2004 (self-portrait)

In 1995, Mogutin was granted political asylum in the U.S. with the support of Amnesty International and PEN American Center. Mogutin's photography and multimedia work have been exhibited internationally, including MoMA PS1 and Museum of Arts and Design in New York; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco; The Pacific Design Center in L.A.; Station Museum of Contemporary Art in Houston; Moscow Museum of Modern Art; Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam; Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen; Estonian KUMU Art Museum in Tallinn; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC) in Spain; and The Haifa Museum of Art in Israel. His work has been featured in a wide range of publications, including i-D, Flash Art, Modern Painters, Visionaire, L’Uomo Vogue, Stern, The New York Times, and The Huffington Post. He is a regular contributor to Whitewall, Vice, Flaunt, and The Stranger.

Mogutin is the author of two hardcover monographs of photography, Lost Boys and NYC Go-Go. In 2004, together with his partner and collaborator Brian Kenny, Mogutin co-founded SUPERM, a collaborative art project responsible for site-specific gallery and museum shows in the U.S. and across Europe.