Collaboration beetween Beit Hagefen Art Gallery and the Photography department Bezalael
Artists: Ariel Hacohen, Aaron Paz, Eli Singalovski, Bar Sharma, Neta Levin, Noya Franco, Barak Rubin, Hanna Qubty, Yael Efrati, Yaakov Israel, Lihi Binyamin, Nili Prag, Maayan Reichan, Maor Milshtein, Rami Maymon, Shabtai Pinchevsky
Curators: Dor Guez and Yeala Hazut
Opening: March 2016
Closing: April 2016
The exhibition Depth of Field presents a range of works that explore monolithic approaches and categorical thought vis-à-vis questions of identity in the national domain of the State of Israel. During the last academic year, the Bezalel Photography Department engaged with these subjects through an ongoing discussion surrounding the term “mixed cities,” which culminated in a dedicated seminar held in Haifa in collaboration with Beit Ha'Gefen Gallery.
The seminar included workshops and meetings with Haifa based photographers, architects, artists, and social activists, focusing on the numerous conflicts created by living in a “mixed” city: the tension between the particular and universal, urban renewal and gentrification, multiple identities versus political oppression, a multinational reality in a single national state, mixed city versus a shared city, and more.
Alongside these, the seminar also brought to the fore questions that touch on the practice of photography: what is the role of the art world in the process of shaping collective memory in Israel? How can we produce a new horizon of looking and resisting? Can we step up and meet our responsibility towards the other? How can we take an active action as the producers or consumers of culture?
The exhibition examines different ways with which photographers present what often remains outside the display venues in Israel. Understanding the design of urban life in “mixed” cities and the conflicts it endangers served as the point of departure for actions that draw on cultural and social practices.
Photography fails when a photographer refuses to acknowledge the responsibility he has as an active member in the cultural arena; photography fails if it does not offer an alternative historiography. This (possible) failure, more than it will attest to the limitations of the medium, will be a testament to the recurring failure of the photographer. To learn photography does not amount only to technical classes in lighting and printing. To learn photography starts with one request – please look.