“IMMENSELY POWERFUL”: FIRST EDITION OF MIKAHILOV’S TWO-VOLUME PHOTOBOOK, AM BODEN / DIE DÄMMERUNG, WITH 237 COLOR PLATES

MIKHAILOV, Boris. Am Boden [By the Ground]. WITH: Die Dämmerung [At Dusk]. (Köln): Oktagon Verlag, (1996). Two volumes. Oblong quartos, original photographic paper-covered boards (one volume blue, one pale orange), original slipcase. $750.

First edition of Mikhailov’s moving two-volume work, featuring Am Boden with 126 brown-toned photographic plates and Die Dämmerung with 111 blue-toned photographic plates.

“Stylistically Boris Mikhailov is one of the most wide-ranging of contemporary photographers,” and in this “immensely powerful, unsettling, yet subtle photobook” of two volumes, featuring a total of 237 color plates from photographs shot in Kiev and his home town of Kharkov, Mikhailov has created “a searing indictment of a society that has broken down… [and] in the photographer’s own words, has given rise to a ‘society of wolves… This is hard-hitting social documentary. But without in any way reducing its immediate documentary impact, Mikhailov takes it further, looking for those ‘historical symbols… that lift the work from a specific social condition and give it a more universal meaning” (Parr & Badger II:77). Each volume with introductory essay by Mikhailov; text in German, English and Russian. With scarce original slipcase.

A fine copy.