Are these skinny, heavily tattooed bodies male or female or at the intersection of the sexes? As in a Harold Pinter play, we feel we'd understand what's going on if we'd only arrived a moment earlier; uncomprehending, we feel we're close to the beautiful mystery these painted, shorn people embody.
Edmund White
Fearlessly confronting the power structure in both the court of law and the court of public opinion, Slava made his voice heard and shone a light on so many who were systemically marginalized and discriminated against. Slava wanted to put a human face on a community long subject to misinformation and erasure.
Sara Rosen, i-D
Mogutin's work, like all the best things of the world, is something you want to keep around all the time-except when you are going through customs.
Christopher Bollen, V Magazine
A joyous, devil-may-care celebration of the gay scene.
3:AM Magazine
Raunchy, spontaneous, and chaotic.
The Advocate
An expression of the indomitable glory of desire.
Bruce Benderson
NYC Go-Go is Slava’s ode to that most noble and ridiculous of New York institutions, the go-go boy: sexual object, exhibitionist, narcissist, hustler, performance artist and working stiff (so to speak). It is pornography, portraiture, anthropology, nostalgia and social history all rolled into one sweaty, ample basket.
Bruce LaBruce
Mogutin's photographic power lies as much in the framing of the images as it does in putting his subjects at such ease that they behave as if no camera were around.
OUT Magazine
The provocative imagery… a look inside the downtown gay club scene.
Gay Times
Mogutin works in the documentary and raw style of photographers like Wolfgang Tillmans and Terry Richardson. The "art of shocking" would be one of the best ways to define his work.
Anthem Magazine
Mogutin’s photographs have engaged both international and domestic audiences. They move us to interrogate our cultural notions of romance, shame, fantasy, and love. The cosmopolitan renegades that inhabit Mogutin's world of urban youth culture vary from the poetic to the downright obscene.
Juxtapoz Magazine
Mogutin's photos are frankly sexual, but they also reflect very real economic and political realities. Let's leave the fear to the authorities and embrace him as an ardent outlaw.
V Magazine
The NYC Go-Go hustler scene is a great metaphor for Western civilization. Everyone is a prostitute.
Attitude Magazine
Pornographic, obsessive, fetishistic, and hilarious in its send-up of macho-on-macho eroticism, Mogutin's work also has fleeting romantic moments and energy to burn. This Russian rude boy’s photos of skinheads in bondage suggest Bruce LaBruce crossed with Terry Richardson, and the best of them pack a good, nasty punch… You gotta love Mogutin’s audacious, fuck-it-all attitude and his willingness to put his kinkiest fetishes on the line.
Vince Aletti, The Village Voice
Slava Mogutin—Russia’s biggest export.
Steve Lafrenier, Index Magazine
His books have challenged sexuality, stereotypes and conservatism… a raw, unfiltered commentary on masculinity via the world of fetish. Left in Mogutin’s hands, humans are opened up to all sorts of possibilities—vulnerable or inherently powerful. An unflinching tribute to his community that captured young gay men at their most liberated.
The Face
Provocative and agonizingly intimate… a cross between porn and fashion, pop culture and marginal kink.
Document Journal
A critical exploration of homoerotic aesthetics, youth culture, and masculinity.
Adriano Sack, Die Welt
Mogutin is the preeminent voice of a new generation of queer artists… an intoxicating mix of mischief, irreverence, rebellion, and audacity.
Blind Magazine
A great work of radical queer art.
Del LaGrace Volcano
He fled his native Russia, where he faced charges of ‘psychic pathology and sexual perversions.’ Is Slava Mogutin a pornographer, genius or madman?
Attitude Magazine
Colorful, exciting, sexy, and full of raw energy.
The Eye of Photography
