Nikita Shokhov (; born 1988) is a visual artist and filmmaker in virtual environments. He received third prize in the World Press Photo award, Staged Portrait: Stories category in 2014.
Biography
Nikita Shokhov, the son of Russian painter, art critic, and an associate professor of Tyumen State University Konstantin Shokhov, was born in Kamensk-Uralsky, USSR. Despite the inherited interest in visual arts, he initially studied in Ural State Law University in Ekaterinburg. Immediately after that he lost interest in the legal profession and decided to study photography and cinema. He joined photography club at the Metenkov House Museum of Photography (), attended workshops led by a renowned photographer Sergey Rogozhkin, and cinematography classes at Sverdlovsk Film Studio. Thereafter he moved to Moscow to enroll in The Rodchenko Art School and continued his education at the documentary photography workshop under the guidance of Igor Mukhin. In late 2010th he continued his education at California Institute of the Arts and School of Visual Arts at Virginia Tech.
Art practice
Shokhov works with both still and moving images. Throughout art projects, he explores the duality of body and mind, myth and reality, human nature, religions, history, and culture. He works in collaboration with his spouse Anna Evtiugina who takes roles of co-author, and producer, depending on a project.
Shokhov's photographs were published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Harper's Bazaar Art, l’Insensé, Openspace, Elle, Time Out and British Journal of Photography, L'Officiel Russia, L'Express, Courrier International, IL, China Newsweek, Calvert Journal, Colta, and YET magazine. He participated in numerous art festivals and biennales, including Manifesta 10 in Saint Petersburg, Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, and Photoquai in Paris.
Photography
The series "Moscow Nightlife" (2010–2015) is a study on human behavior. Shokhov spent several years documenting a demographically diverse range of Muscovites from hipsters to low class at different settings and different moments of their night out. Through Shokhov's sober eyes the partymakers appear similar to carnival revelers in Mikhail Bakhtin's philosophy works. Shokhov's thesis project at the Rodchenko Art School, the series "Rublevka" (2012–2013) was a visual research of a prestigious residential area of that name to the west of Moscow. Rublevka is where the residencies of nouveau riche are located and also the place with the highest social stratification in Russia. In his photo report, Shokhov captured the new elite, the ordinary inhabitants, and the guest workers to highlight the threatening gap between extremely rich and incredibly poor. The series "Black Sea" (2011–2012) created at several Black Sea resorts such as Sochi and Anapa was dedicated to Russian beach culture. It resembles Martin Parr's photobook The Last Resort (1986) that represented working-class vacationers in the UK, and photographs by Sergey Rogozhkin on Black Sea beaches in the 1980s In the series "Utrich", Shokhov combined documentary and staged photography methods to approach Biblical motives. It was produced at Utrish national park on the northern shore of the Black Sea that has been a popular spot among nudists since the 1980s. Vacationers from the nudist camps were invited as models. The series "Children Personal Space" (2014) was a research on living space of young people and the way they interact with it with surreal scenarios shot in routine environments. In the series "Sacred Procession" (2012–2014), Shokhov approached religious processions in provincial towns, photographed candidly, bringing an unedited report.