Welcome to Boogie's Moscow. These are people sculpted by a brutal, concrete landscape, fighting to survive. This is a world of football hooligans, gang tattoos, boxing...Yet this is not misery porn: There is an inherent vitality in the violence - the enduring toughness - of these images. There is dynamism, there is esprit de corps, there is strength.
'Raw' is a term that is perhaps overused, but Boogie's photos truly assault the senses. But the photographer's arresting gaze is directly returned by his subjects, and an undeniable rapport and intimacy is felt by the viewer. We are witnessing something, above all, crucially human.
From the artist behind It's All Good (Miss Rosen Editions/powerHouse Books 2006/2016), Boogie (powerHouse Books, 2007), and Belgrade Belongs to Me (powerHouse Books, 2008) comes an urban, industrial, but heart-wrenchingly humane new collection. You cannot look away.