It was especially his somber series Case History(1997–1998) that earned Boris Mikhailov a larger audience, particularly in the West. Employing the same critical verve with which he had previously recorded day-to-day life under Soviet rule in his hometown of Kharkiv, Ukraine, Mikhailov limned the dreadful poverty occasioned by the subsequent arrival there of ultraliberal capitalism. Contemptuous of every rule, his unconventional documentary approach places him in his own shots, mixing intimate photographs and social testimonies. From the outset of his activities in the 1960s, Eros has played a major role in Mikhailov’s art (he was fired from his job following the discovery of some nude photographs he had taken), as well as in his collaborative work with his wife Vita over the last 20 years. Eros is seen as part of daily life, in a pleasurable, ironic, amused, disabused and even tender way, whenever he turns his lens on the most destitute.