Ori Gersht: Selected Works
On view in the Rebecca Ibel Gallery in the Short North
1055 North High Street, Columbus OH 43201
Exhibition open: December 1 – January 8
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 4, 6-8 pm
Ori Gersht Of Balance, 2009 LVT print mounted on aluminum, numbered 2/6, framed 14 3/4 x 19 1/2 inches
The Rebecca Ibel Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs from the internationally acclaimed Israeli artist Ori Gersht. Based in London, Gersht has been an important voice in contemporary art for more than a decade.
The exhibition features still life works from the Falling Bird, Pomegranate, and Time after Time: Exploding Flowers series. The artist plays with the classic still life and literally breaks it apart. Lush and painterly in feel, the photographs in the upcoming exhibition are inspired by Old Master paintings, from the 18th C French painter Chardin to the 17th C Spanish artist Juan Sanches Cotan, to Dutch and French still life painting traditions. The artist restages these scenes and then uses high-tech devices to add his own twist to the narrative.
As is most of his works, the artist investigates the connecting notions of beauty and death. As the traditional still life is meant to be a reflection of human frailty and the passage of time. Gersht pushes the limits of photography and film to underscore ideas of time and the visual experience. His work has been described as capturing the 'optical unconsciousness,' or the infinite changes that exist in between what the brain and naked eye register with human consciousness. Gersht employs cutting-edge photographic technology to accomplish the eternal desire to suspend time. Rendering time plastic, Gersht creates ethereal works, pregnant with narrative.
Gersht’s photographs both compresses and expand time. In contrast to still life paintings, his scenes are captured quickly through photography. Time is thereby compressed when compared to the classical still life painting, which seems to depict one moment even though significant time would have elapsed during the painting process and changes to the scene would therefore have occurred. Gersht also expands time by dissecting it. Each photograph represents an exact moment in time. As his photographs implicitly recognize, though, time is subject to infinite dissection. While his photographic process reveals fleeting realities that otherwise would elude human consciousness, since time can never be broken down completely it will always to obscure as well as reveal. Like Russian dolls, within every moment lies another.
Ori Gersht Imbalances, 2008 Lambda print mounted on aluminum, numbered 1/6, 47 1/4 x 59 inches
Originally from Tel Aviv, Gersht currently lives and works in London. He received his BA from the University of Westminister and his MFA from the Royal College of Art, both in London. Over the past 20 years, his works have been widely exhibited internationally and are included in numerous museum collections including: The Tate, SF Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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