Foto Friday – Sharon Yaari

January 30, 2009 - 6:01 PM by Rachel Neiman

Was it real or did I dream it? Photography on one hand, can document fact. On the other hand, it creates illusions, presents images without context to leave any narrative up to the observer, or records people, places, and things that have passed. By its very nature, photographs are short-lived, comprised of fragile paper, film, or – worse yet – digital data that will disappear forever with one good wave of a magnet.

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SharonYaari is an award winning photographer whose work has long dealt with the temporal. His new solo show “Jerusalem Boulevard” now at the Sommer Gallery in Tel Aviv are large-format photos of things readily identifiable as part of daily life in Israel: a checkered blanket of the kind that everyone used to have (we called them “sochnut blankets” when I made aliya, because the Jewish Agency distributed them to new immigrants); a classic semicircular Tel Aviv Bauhaus balcony; Ibex lying under a eucalyptus tree; a chair and some flowers; a woman at what is clearly (for Israelis) a memorial site.

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They are at once familiar and at the same time, raise questions on a practical level: Do they make those blankets any more? Aren’t the Ibex in danger of extinction? Will the Bauhaus structures, whose architectural philosophy never intended them to stand forever, survive urban pollution? Is that woman from the Twenties? The Forties? The Eighties? Now?

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They also raise questions on an existential level… does everything fade and die as undoubtedly these flowers did long ago?

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“Jerusalem Boulevard” will be at the Sommer Gallery through March 21st.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , • Category: Art, Foto Friday, General, Israeliness 

Comments

One Comment on Foto Friday – Sharon Yaari

  1. David-Joe on Sun, Feb 1st 2009 5:29 PM

    2. Also asthetics show people’s minds – and some of the pictures above definitely require substance abuse to appreciate. Was the photographer on drugs?

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