MoCP - Darkroom 2023

Clarissa Bonet (United States, b. 1986) 

For her City Space series (2011–2016), Clarissa Bonet observes and takes note of chance encounters and interactions she witnesses between strangers on the streets of downtown Chicago. Bonet later restages the moments, carefully setting up her location, lighting, and models to re-create the original scene. The resulting pictures portray mundane exchanges as dramatic, with individuals anonymously and solitarily navigating a confounding urban terrain. 

Clarissa Bonet’s work has been exhibited at the Bauhaus Archive, Berlin; the Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, IL; the Aperture Foundation, NY; and Magenta Foundation, Toronto among others. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston; the University of Michigan Museum of Art; the Southeast Museum of Photography, FL; the Haggerty Museum of Art, WI; University Club Chicago; and the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection.  Her work also won inclusion in “The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today” at The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. 

http://www.clarissabonet.com/