Boris Mikhailov – Case History (1999)

There are photobooks created to feel you are visiting a strange place, dark but real, and even if you know this is part of reality somehow your mind refuses to accept it. Case History is a good example and in its pages we can find how strangely death, love and human relationships can be valued more than any other system. Boris Mikhailov spent years in Ukraine taking pictures of the poorness installed at the end of the URSS years after the Perestroika, when oligarchs of all kinds took the power and destroyed all social structures. The result is a very long album that tells (with images) the story of certain characters that live in the streets and don’t mind to pose (after being paid) for the photographer and his wife in all possible situations. The pictures hit directly in our stomach, they are really hard to look at which makes us question if they are necessary, but once we see how changes in a political systems in favour of some political elites can affect us that much we feel they should be documented somehow. Maybe this is not the way, but the impact created through these large series and beautifully taken pictures probably raised more awareness about the problem that many texts and other informations.

Scalo, 1999. 180 x 240 mm. Hardcover with dustjacket, 478 pages.

First edition. Condition: Very good.