Tomorow: Michal Chelbin @ the New York Public Library

Tuesday, March 24, 6:30 pm

As part of the Photographer @ the Library lecture series, Aperture and the New York Public Library are pleased to announce a special talk and book signing with acclaimed Israeli artist Michal Chelbin who will discuss the work from her first monograph. Strangely Familiar: Acrobats, Athletes, and Other Traveling Troupes (Aperture, 2008) features 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. 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 several solo shows and more recently at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel and at the Andrea Meislin Gallery in New York; the latter also represents her.

WHERE
New York Public Library
Mid-Manhattan Branch
455 Fifth Avenue
(between 39th and 40th street)
New York, New York
(212) 340-0849