Dmitry Maikovich: Vulgar Objects and the Peeking Art

Dmitry Maikovich is a graphic designer and underground artist who works across multiple media. His primary themes include voyeurism, intimacy, and emotional fragility. Dmitry affectionately refers to his Instagram as gadooshnik (“snake pit”). His small-edition zines often include unconventional features: a real shower curtain sewn into the pages, peepholes for secret viewing, or installations that require climbing a ladder to peer into a cube. He gathers stories from people around him, draws inspiration from Japanese culture, and makes his objects as tactile and physical as possible.

«Zine as an own exhibition»

"I’ve always loved paper and print. I still remember the first time I saw a color printer at someone’s house—it blew my mind. There was some celebration going on, but I shut the door and tried to figure out what amazing thing I could print. As a kid, I’d fold paper, draw pictures, and write little books. In a way, not much has changed. I try to make my zines as physical as possible—thinking through every detail, down to which thread to use in the binding. For me, a zine is limitless in its storytelling potential. The small print-run format allows for crazy constructions you’d never pull off at a print shop. You could even add a sound chip, fold the paper into some bizarre structure—or make a mini aquarium with fish. To me, a zine has more in common with a film than with a traditional book. It’s like your own solo exhibition, just in a different kind of space."

Zine "VOITURE"

"In "Voiture", a bubblegum-pink, 84-page zine, pipes and tubes become a fetishistic language of the city—emerging from walls and pavement, curling along fences and windows. Painted red, they turn back-alley strolls into encounters with blushing genitals. The zine features a tiny, high-tech peeping device: a techno-womb simulator in action."

To create Voiture, Maikovich recorded stories from friends and transcribed them. Influenced by William Burroughs and the idea of literature as collage, he constructed a fragmented narrative, where meaning emerges at the intersections of texts rather than within them. “If a book is an idea, and a stack of pages is just one vessel for it, then why not make a film on paper?” He carefully edited the diverse voices into a single stylistic thread, sometimes anonymizing names at the request of contributors.

Zine "JOY"

In another project, Joy, Maikovich and his friend Denchik decided to bathe in zucchini caviar inside a closed military town—an absurd and joyful act they later documented. Each copy of the resulting zine was sewn with dental floss and came with its own voyeuristic shower curtain.

On Voyeurism

"It’s hard to say why voyeurism runs so deeply through my work, but it’s a major theme in the art of Yukio Mishima and Shinya Tsukamoto—both of whom I dedicated Voiture to. When the object being watched is unaware, it feels like we’re witnessing a hidden world—something more real than reality. It’s like growing a pair of eyes on the back of your head."