WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.- The Norton Museum of Art is the first U.S. venue to present This Place: Israel Through Photography’s Lens. The exhibition opens on Thursday, Oct 15, 2015 and will be on view through Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016.
When French photographer Frederic Brenner decided to invite a group of the finest photographers in the world to spend time in Israel and the West Bank to create their own portraits of the place, some were intrigued and others were wary of being used for political gain, or were not interested. But Brenner ultimately convinced 11 men and women to accept his invitation to see a land more complicated than headlines suggest. The result is an unprecedented international, creative initiative that, according to photographer Brenner, is similar to the U.S. Farm Security Administration of the 1930s, which commissioned artists who used photography to ask essential questions about culture, society, and people’s lives. Brenner is scheduled to give an exhibition lecture at 6 p.m. on Oct. 15 during Art After Dark, and returns on Nov. 19 for a presentation with other photographers who participated.
The Norton is also presenting a four-part film series, Many Faces of Israel, in conjunction with the exhibition. Organized by longtime film festival director Karen Davis, short dramas and documentaries made by Bedouin, Israeli, and Palestinian directors as well as film students will be shown and discussed at the Norton on Oct. 22, Nov. 22, Dec. 3, and Jan. 14.
While the exhibition acknowledges and pays heed to the region’s conflicts, it asks that we look beyond this – that we widen and multiply our lens. It unveils a dozen contemporary photographic viewpoints of Israel and the West Bank, created primarily between 2009 and 2012. Participating photographers were Brenner (France), Wendy Ewald (United States), Martin Kollar (Slovakia), Josef Koudelka (Czech Republic), Jungjin Lee (S. Korea), Gilles Peress (France), Fazal Sheikh (United States), Stephen Shore (United States), Rosalind Fox Solomon (United States), Thomas Struth (Germany), Jeff Wall (Canada) and Nick Waplington (United Kingdom). The combination of these individual photographic sensibilities and approaches act as a heterogeneous narrative and produce not a single, monolithic vision, but rather a diverse and fragmented portrait of this important and much contested space.
“When what is at stake is sharing the origin,” says Brenner, “it seems to me necessary to gather a large spectrum of individuals whose origins, passions, and paradoxical and contradictory perspectives could help us grasp the unbearable complexity of this place and its voices.” The result is This Place.
