Every zine writes about him, every arty hipster queer knows him and everybody wants to be like him – or at least to date his boyfriend (both videos at the bottom of the article).

Slava Mogutin is a New York-based Russian artist and author, who works across different media, including photography, video, text, performance, sculpture, and painting.

Born in Siberia, in the industrial city of Kemerovo, Mogutin moved to Moscow at age 14. He soon began working as a journalist and editor for the first independent Russian papers, publishers and radio stations. By the age of 21, he had gained both critical acclaim and official condemnation for his outspoken queer writings. Accused of “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”—he became the target of two highly publicized criminal cases, carrying a potential prison sentence of up to seven years. Forced to leave Russia, he was granted political asylum in the US with the support of Amnesty International and PEN American Center.

His boyfriend, Brian Kenny was born 1982 in Heidelberg, Germany, on an American military base. While growing up he traveled extensively throughout the US with his Army family. As a teenager, Brian was a competitive gymnast. After high school, he went to Oberlin Conservatory on a vocal scholarship, but eventually left school to concentrate on his own music and artwork. Kenny works across drawing, painting, sculpture, text, sound, video and blogging. In 2004, Brian moved to New York where he began collaborating with Slava Mogutin under team name SUPERM. They are responsible for site-specific, multimedia gallery and museum shows in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, London, Moscow, Oslo, Bergen and León, Spain.

CRUSHfanzine had firstly a ManCrush on Slava Mogutin last year and this March they are all over Brian Kenny. CRUSHfanzine chats with Slava on his fire escape about his art, obsessions and the search for Adidas in Siberia. And with Brian they discuss sex, beauty, extra limbs, and running.

More nfo:

CRUSHfanzine

2 Comments

  1. Grateful Grapefruit © » Hold Up For The Whole Truth

    […] you are a dedicated Grateful Grapefruit follower, the name Brian Kenny should automatically ring a bell. His art is constantly ejaculating new loads through his blog and if I were to blog about new […]

  2. Grateful Grapefruit © » Happy Birthday, Brian!

    […] Friday one of my most favorite couples (artists Slava Mogutin and Brian Kenny) will celebrate their 6th anniversary. However, the focus of this post is on Mr. Kenny, who […]

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