Strangely Familiar: Acrobats, Athletes, and Other Traveling Troupes - Michal Chelbin
Emerging Israeli artist Michal Chelbin showcases her internally charged portraits of small town performers in circuses and other traveling troupes in the Ukraine, Russia, Israel and England.
Coinciding with the release of her first monograph, Strangely Familiar: Acrobats, Athletes, and Other Traveling Troupes (Aperture, May 2008), emerging Israeli artist Michal Chelbin will talk about her career and work—richly detailed, internally charged portraits of small town performers in circuses and other traveling troupes taken over a period of six years in the Ukraine, Russia, Israel and England. Chelbin’s most frequent subjects are children and adolescents, yet her work encompasses a mix of generations. As Leah Ollman notes in the book’s text, “The atmosphere falls somewhere between public and private. There’s a slight titillation of having personal access to performers who, typically, are experienced only remotely. Most immediate, though, are the visual contrasts between young and old, large and small, innocence and experience.” Often captured in performance costumes, Chelbin’s palette is intense, with a distinctive use of saturated pinks, blues, and greens. Her black-and-white images, which are intermingled throughout the book, have an almost Pictorialist richness. Though her influences are evident—most notably August Sander and Diane Arbus—the photographs in Strangely Familiar have a unique visual and emotional impact.
Michal Chelbin (born in Haifa, Israel, 1974) has lived in Brooklyn since 2006. Her work has appeared in solo shows in Israel, Los Angeles, and New York, and in group shows internationally, and is held in many collections, including Palazzo Forti, Verona, Italy; Sir Elton John Collection. This body of work will be featured in Fall 2008 in a solo show at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
