From Loring Knoblauch’s extensive review of “Michal Chelbin | Sailboats and Swans” at CLAMP for Collector Daily:
Michal Chelbin started making portraits of Russian and Ukrainian prison inmates in 2008, several years before the first invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2014, and unlike the photojournalistic images of war we are now consuming, her photographs don’t offer any easy answers or neatly polarized characterizations. In fact, the staging of a show of this older body of work, titled “Sailboats and Swans,” at this particular moment in time of conflict intentionally forces us to wrestle with a range of expectations and preconceived notions, particularly in terms of what we assume a criminal or a prison in one of these countries is supposed to look like.
Browse the exhibition “Michal Chelbin | Sailboats and Swans” at CLAMP.
Browse all of Michal Chelbin’s work at CLAMP.