Naomi Leshem
dal 12/1/2011 al 17/2/2011
Segnalato da
12/1/2011
Naomi Leshem
Andrea Meislin Gallery, New York
Between Zones. The exhibition includes two distinct but complementary bodies of work. Runways shows images of young women standing on all nine of Israel's active military runways and Sleepers captures adolescent boys and girls at their most vulnerable: asleep at night in their beds. Both series speak of a momentary limbo between states, between consciousness and between the milestones of young life.
Andrea Meislin Gallery is very pleased to present Between Zones, an exhibition of work by acclaimed photographer Naomi Leshem.
The exhibition includes two distinct but complementary bodies of work. Runways shows images of young women standing on all nine of Israel's active military runways and Sleepers captures adolescent boys and girls at their most vulnerable: asleep at night in their beds. Both series speak of a momentary limbo between states, between consciousness and between the milestones of young life.
Runways, shot at the height of the punishing desert sun, shows young girls just before beginning their mandatory conscription in the Israeli Army. They engage with the otherwise forbidding runways; frolicking, standing, staring. The series examines the consequences of circumstance, when fate can be decided with the same severity with which the scorched skid marks funnel viewers to an unseen, unknown horizon.
Leshem's fascination in a transitory limbo, a place intimate but unknown, led the artist to limit her subjects in Sleepers to adolescents between the ages of 16 and 20, symbols of prime vitality themselves in a transition from childhood to adulthood. A total of 32 portraits make up the complete Sleepers series, which was shot over four years in five countries; Israel, Switzerland, Germany, France and the United States.
The portraits are brightly lit, belying traditional nighttime scenes. Leshem conceives of the work as classical portraiture, and in a sense these are the purest form of portraiture: faces without pretense, conscious projection or stance, a face even the person asleep has never seen. There is a subtle tension between the concept of the transitory state and its accompanying physical effects - notice the reddish tint to some subject's lips or ears, the result of the physical process during sleep when blood is sent to smaller vessels in the body.
An accompanying book, Sleepers (published by the Swiss house Benteli in association with Israel's Even Hoshen) will be available at the gallery in tandem with the show. The entire 32 Sleepers portraits will concurrently be on view at IG Halle am Kunst(Zeug)Haus, Rapperswil, Switzerland through April 3, 2011.
Naomi Leshem, recipient of the 2009 Constantiner Award for an Israeli photographer by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, studied Photography at the Hadassah College in Jerusalem. This is her first solo exhibition with the Andrea Meislin Gallery.
For more information please contact the Andrea Meislin Gallery at info@andreameislin.com or (212) 627-2552.
Opening reception for the artist on January 13, 2011 from 6 - 8 PM.
Andrea Meislin Gallery
526 West 26th Street, Suite 214 - New York, NY 10001
Gallery Hours are Tuesday - Saturday 10 am - 6 pm
Admission free