Dalia Amotz, Aliza Auerbach, Ya’acov Ben Dov

B o n f i l s , Y o s a i f C o h a i n , L a z a r D ü n n e r

P e s i G i r s c h , E l i a K a h v e d j i a n , L e o K a n n

Ro i Kuper , Pe te r Merom, Sh lomo Nar insky

Gilad Ophir, Jakob Rosner, Shmuel Yosef Schweig

David Serry, Simcha Shirman, Orit Siman-Tov

A v r a h a m S o s k i n , S h a r o n Y a ’ a r i

F r a m e d L a n d s c a p e

A Comment on Landscape Photography

U n i v e r s i t y o f H a i f a , F a c u l t y o f H u m a n i t i e s , T h e A r t G a l l e r y

University of Haifa | Faculty of Humanities | The Art Gallery

F r a m e d L a n d s c a p eA Comment on Landscape Photography

13 November 2004 - 13 January 2005

The Facul ty of Humanit iesDean: Prof. Menahem MorHead of Administration: Mr. Aharon Refter

Gal leryCurator and Director of the Collections: Prof. Avishay AyalProduction: Michal ZahaviProduction Assistant: Relly YuristConstruction: Michael Halak

Exhibi t ionCurator: Guy RazScans and Prints: Warhaftig Venezian Ltd.Additional Scans: Nadav Mann – BitmunaAdditional Prints: Atraczia, Haifa

Cata loguePhoto Editor: Guy RazGraphic Design and Production: Atara EitanPhotographs: Warhaftig Venezian Ltd. Hebrew Editing and English Translation: Daria Kassovsky(thanks to Jon Spector)Scans and Printing: Ayalon Offset Ltd., Haifa

The Art Gallery is supported by the Visual Art DepartmentThe Culture Administration, the Ministry of Education and Culture

Hebrew cover: Félix Bonfils, M o u n t T a b o r , 1867-1878

English cover: Gilad Ophir, E l C a p i t a n n o . 1 6 , 1995

ISBN 965-7230-06-3

© All rights reserved, November 2004

The Art Gallery, University of Haifa

Thanks to all the photographers and lenders:

Bonfils: The photographs in the catalogue courtesy of Yad Ben-Zvi Photo Archive, Félix Bonfils

Collection and Bitmuna – Nadav Mann (Hebrew cover, pp. 12, 22, 25, 39, 45);

he photographs in the exhibition courtesy of the Open Museum of Photography, Tel Hai

Industrial Park.

Avraham Soskin: The photographs courtesy of the Institute for Labour Research in Memory

of Pinchas Lavon (pp. 5, 7, 43 top) and the A. Soskin Collection, Eretz-Israel Museum,

Tel Aviv (p. 43 bottom).

Shlomo Narinsky: The photographs (pp. 3, 15, 20, 35) courtesy of David Goss, Tel Aviv.

Leo Kann: The photograph (p. 16) courtesy of Batya Souzin and Bitmuna – Nadav Mann.

Ya’acov Ben Dov (p. 4), Shmuel Yosef Schweig (pp. 6, 37), Jakob Rosner (p. 30), Lazar

Dünner (pp. 8, 11): The photographs courtesy of JNF-KKLs Photo Archive.

David Serry: The photographs (pp. 19, 36) courtesy of Shlomo Serry, Jerusalem.

Elia Kahvedjian: The photographs (pp. 24, 26) courtesy of the artist’s family, Jerusalem.

Peter Merom: The photographs (pp. 28, 29) courtesy of the Open Museum of Photography,

Tel Hai Industrial Park.

Dalia Amotz: The photographs courtesy of a Private Collector (p. 9), the Collection of the

Tel Aviv Museum of Art (p. 21), and Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv (p. 10).

Yosaif Cohain: The photographs courtesy of the photographer; scans (pp. 7, 38) courtesy

of the Open Museum of Photography, Tel Hai Industrial Park.

Simcha Shirman: The photographs (p. 27) courtesy of the photographer and a Private

Collector.

Roi Kuper: The photographs (p. 23) courtesy of the photographer and Noga Gallery

of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv.

Sharon Ya’ari: The photographs (pp. 18, 33) courtesy of the photographer and the

Collection of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, acquired through the generosity of the Nelford

Foundation, 2001.

Gilad Ophir: The photographs courtesy of the photographer (p. 48), the Collection of the

Tel Aviv Museum of Art, acquired through the generosity of the Nelford Foundation, 2002

(p. 17), and Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv (English cover).

Aliza Auerbach (pp. 31, 32), Pesi Girsch (pp. 14, 19, 34), Orit Siman-Tov

(pp. 12, 13, 14): The photographs courtesy of the photographers.

Framed Landscape: A Comment on LocalLandscape Photography opens the exhibitionseason of the 2004-5 academic year. It featuresthe work of twenty photographers whosecollective activity spans 150 years. As inprevious years, the season begins with ahistorical exhibition that presents a certainaspect of local art in cross-section. Thepreceding exhibitions, Grid Images in IsraeliArt (2002) and Overcraft: Obsession, Decorationand Biting Beauty (2003) attracted academicinterest and popularity among visitors, andwere subsequently shown in additionalmuseums and galleries throughout the country.The Gallery’s endeavor to present historicalcross-section exhibitions accompanied by anup-to-date catalogue is intended to remedy thelack in such exhibitions in the public domainof art. In this respect, the Art Gallery serves theuniversity’s goals as an institute of highereducation that combines scientific research andhumanist study, an institute that acts underthe banner of cultural contribution to society.

The current exhibition is also a continuation, asecond, complimentary part, to the exhibitionOur Landscape: Notes on Landscape Painting inIsrael featured at the Gallery from March untilMay 2004. The decision to separate landscapepainting from landscape photography stemmedfrom space limitations as well as from thedesire to distinguish between the arts ofpainting and photography. Nevertheless, thesetwo exhibitions share common aspects:One is the ability to observe, in a broad,panoramic gaze, the ways in which thecountry’s landscapes have changed in thecourse of the 20th century; how deserts, poormountain villages and desolate towns havebeen transformed into the landscapes of anindustrialized, densely-populated countrystrewn with political, national and securityconflicts. The second aspect pertains to theway in which the use of artistic language haschanged over the years. Both the paintings and

the photographs of the early 20th century weresmall in scale, presenting a romantic view of abiblical Holy Land in a style that today seemslike the naive idealism of hopeful dreamers.The conspicuous changes in the perception ofart’s function have dramatically transformedthe way in which the artist perceives his socialrole, resulting in a different appearance of theartistic product: contemporary painting andphotography are typified by large formats,meticulous quality, a combination of a criticalview of society and an ironic gaze at reality,and a late recognition of the artistic medium’slimitations.

In addition to these two aspects, painting andphotography maintain intricate interrelationsthat have manifested themselves over the past150 years in constant exchange and an implicitstruggle for status and prestige. If for manyyears photography was deemed painting’sinferior sister, today its status no longerrequires confirmation. Many of today’spainters regularly borrow images and processesfrom photography without causing wonder.On the other hand, photographers have alwaysbeen conscious of developments in artisticdisciplines and have been the first toimplement insights linked with the critique ofculture and social thought.

Although modest in scope, the currentexhibition is unprecedented and ambitious: forthe first time it provides a broad historical viewof local landscape photography – among themost prominent genres in photographic art –while focusing on several subtopics. Throughthe juxtaposition of photographs from variousperiods, the exhibition sets out to generate anew gaze at our historical past. It bringstogether twenty selected artists, eachrepresenting many of his contemporaries whocould not have been included due tolimitations in scope. 46

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ForewordA v i s h a y A y a l

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“Man is nothing but a small plot of land, /nothing but the image of his native landscape, /nothing but what his ears recorded when stillfresh, / nothing but what his eyes recorded erethey became satiated with gazing…“– Shaul Tchernichovsky1

The exhibition Framed Landscape: AComment on Local Landscape Photographyis a continuation of the exhibition OurLandscape: Notes on Landscape Painting inIsrael featured at the Art Gallery,University of Haifa from March to May2004. Modest in scope, the exhibitionprovides a brief synopsis of the history oflandscape photography in Eretz-Israel/Palestine and the State of Israel between1867 and 2002. Each of the twentyparticipating photographers is representedby a single photograph or a part of a seriesof photographs, and stands for a period,personal qualities and style. The exhibitionoffers a glance at some of the styles thatcharacterized local photography inprevious decades and at the photographicart being created in Israel today. Thejuxtaposition of photographers from suchdifferent periods illustrates not only thechanges in the country’s landscapes, butmainly the transformations in theperception of the landscape and itsrepresentation in photography: how thephotographic frame exposes the landscapeimage through a photographiccomposition. The Israeli landscape isstratified with archaeological, ideological,religious and political layers. One of thegoals of the current exhibition is to presentthe historical memory invoked byphotographs from various periods.

In his catalogue essay accompanying thefirst exhibition Avishay Ayal maintainedthat the ongoing struggle over the landand the constant geo-politicalpreoccupation with the future of itsvarious regions elicit the need to discusstheir nature and appearance. “Concurrentto the political aspect, many feel that thecountry is changing rapidly and that theold landscapes are no longer to be found:accelerated urbanization, industrialization,suburbanization, transportation andpopulation density – all these areindicative of a very different land than thatseen by the painters and inhabitants thatlived here eighty, fifty and even thirtyyears ago.”2 This comment is doubly truefor photography, the most popular andcommon vehicle of documentation overthe past century.

A growing interest in the history of localphotography has developed in the pastdecade. Large-scale exhibitions were stagedattempting to sum up its history, as well asseveral retrospective exhibitions dedicatedto photographers who operated in thecountry mainly until the 1970s. Inaddition to the catalogues accompanyingthese exhibitions, several comprehensiveperiod books were published. Photographswere also incorporated into variousexhibitions addressing the Israelilandscape, featured recently in museumsand galleries throughout the country.3

In view of the increasing interest in thistheme, it seems that the time has come toreview cross-sectional themes in local 44

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Nothing but what hiseyes recordedA Comment on LocalLandscape Photography*G u y R a z

* An abridged version of the Hebrew catalogue text.

photography over its 150 years ofexistence. Thematic perusal of the historyof photography will allow for a discussionof the historical continuum ofphotography, a discussion that still has nottaken place in public artistic discourse inIsrael. The exhibition sets out to presentthe first theme in the series – locallandscape photography – while focusingon the human figure in local landscapephotographs, thereby also reviewing theevolution of local landscape photographyover the years.

Preoccupation with landscape photographyin Eretz-Israel/Palestine began in 1839, theyear of the invention of photography. Itwas initiated by photographers who carriedheavy cameras and equipment, glassnegatives and celluloid of varying lightsensitivities, and had to confront harshweather conditions, such as heat and cold,blinding light, and other difficulties. Thefirst photographers arrived in the countryeither as pilgrims, as part of science andresearch expeditions or as tourists, anddocumented the landscapes of the “HolyLand” in keeping with their mission. Theharsh objective conditions and the qualityof photographic materials at the timeinfluenced the static nature of thephotographs and the absence of detail,such as clouds in the skies of localphotography.

The devoted work of photographers sincethe late 19th century enables us today topresent the country’s landscapes accordingto different historical and artistic

cross-sections. For the Jewish people in theDiaspora and later in Eretz-Israel, thesephotographs of the country’s sites and holyplaces served as visual representations ofpristine biblical vistas. With the advent ofpioneering settlement and the intenseeconomic activity of the national Zionistmovement, a far-reaching change occurredin the land’s appearance. The impact ofthe Zionist vision on the local landscapehas been discernible since 1901, the yearin which the Jewish National Fund (JNF)was founded, in the form of organized“Zionist photography,” and moreforcefully – since the mid-1930s. It wasmodernist photography mobilized fordistinct propagandist needs, and wasmeant to influence the consciousness of itsJewish consumers in Eretz-Israel/Palestineand the world over. Naturally, thephotographers who served the Zionistvision were also the central figures whocreated the memory and history of locallandscape photography.

Landscape, argues W.J.T. Mitchell in hisessay “Imperial Landscape,” in his bookLandscape and Power is not an artisticgenre, but rather a medium, namely anideological tool. He further maintains thatlandscape is a medium of exchangebetween the human and the natural.Landscape representations, in art as awhole and in photography in particular,are used as a propaganda tool by theleaders of countries such as Russia,Germany, United States, andPalestine/Eretz-Israel, from the beginningof the 20th century, through the period of43

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1912Degania,

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World War II, to the present. In anotheressay from the year 2000 entitled “HolyLandscape: Israel, Palestine, and theAmerican Wilderness,” Mitchell discussesthe landscapes of what he calls “promisedlands,” maintaining that: “The perverselogic of holy landscape seems to turn itfrom god’s gift into an obscene idol thatdemands human sacrifice. The sacredgroves are watered by blood, and the fieldsare fertilized with human flesh and bones.Palestine/Israel, the sacred territory of thethree great religions of the Book, theobject of several millennia of conquest,crusade, and holy war, has seen its share ofsanctification by blood. […] My argumentis that landscape, on the one hand, is amedium of representation that,historically, has been thought to beinnocent of idolatry, even associated withan iconoclastic prohibition on gravenimages. […] On the other hand, it seemsobvious that landscape is quite capable ofbecoming an idol in its own right – that is,a potent, ideological representation thatserves to naturalize power relations anderase history and legibility.“4 Thelandscape, according to Mitchell, is ahistorical product associated withEuropean, and subsequently Americanimperialism, and from these to theideological power of the Eretz-Israelilandscape is a short distance.

Visual representations for Mitchell’sarguments regarding the conquest ofNative American land are presented byAmerican landscape photographers fromthe very outset of photography. The

best-known among them, Ansel Adams(1902-1984) created his series of landscapephotographs mainly between 1930 and1970. The ideological counterparts of theAmerican photographers here, especially ofthose who worked for the American FarmSecurity Administration (FSA) from themid-1930s, were the photographers whooperated in the service of the Zionist ideabetween 1901-1948, mainly through theZionist funds.5

Landscape photography of the pasttransforms over the years into adocumentation of a reality no longer inexistence, becoming infused with anostalgic air. Many like to cling to thisnostalgia, as in two of Avraham Soskin’swell-known photographs, Lottery of AhuzatBayit Housing Plots, Tel Aviv, 1909, andThe Shack in Umm-Juni, Degania, 1912.But the nostalgic gaze tends to repress thewilderness, the harsh conditions and thedifficulties that accompanied thephotography protagonists. Even thoughevery photograph depicting a place in thecountry carries charged historical andpolitical memories, the political contextsemerge in the exhibition only implicitly.Due to the gallery’s dimensions and theneed to limit the number of participants,the exhibition does not purport toencapsulate the theme and all its facets. Amore profound and extensive discussion ofthe various aspects of the country’slandscape and related themes pertaining tourban photography and industrialphotography will have to await a broaderand more comprehensive show in thefuture. 42

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A distinction has developed since the1970s in local photography betweentraditional nature and landscapephotographers and photographers whoperceive their work as conveying a criticalartistic stand. The traditionalistphotographers – whether amateur orprofessional – consecrate in their exact andtechnical photographs the aestheticexperience of the landscape as a kind ofreligious experience. These photographersoften turn to primordial landscapes, as yetuntouched by man, and their workaccentuates the sense of awe at the beautyof creation and the excitement aroused inview of nature and the elements. Asopposed to these, the photographers whointroduce a critical-artistic approachincorporate landscape photography as partof a statement that is akin to taking apersonal stand; namely, the “innerlandscape” reflects on the photographedlandscape. This position is not onlymanifested in the photographiccomposition, but also in terms of themode and context of display in various artspaces.

The exhibition offers four sub-sections:Sea and Water; Mountains, Valleys andDeserts; Archaeological Sites; Man as aLandscape Matrix. This is the firstpresentation of these thematiccross-sections, and it attests mainly to therecurrence of images throughout thehistory of local landscape photography.Presentation of photographs from differentperiods allows for the introduction of thephotographers’ unique points of view in

keeping with the spirit of the time, theideological background, and the aestheticbaggage of each.

Additional conspicuous sub-topics includethe cypress, colored photography and colorphotography. Alongside these one maydiscern secondary themes such as the sabra(cactus) hedge, indigenous trees and theirfruit, orchards and groves, agriculturalfields, settlement, and more. Furthermore,the titles of the photographs often bearhistorical and literary meanings worthy ofnote.

As aforesaid, it is beyond the scope of thisexhibition to introduce many significantissues, such as cityscapes, industriallandscape, landscapes of war, and so on.One should also note that the exhibitiondoes not reflect the historical and currentperspectives of Arab, Muslim, Christianand Armenian photographers living inIsrael and in the Palestinian Authority.These deserve a separate exhibition.

His to r i c a l Background ,Cros s -Sec t iona l Themes andPhotographer s

1 8 5 5 - 1 9 0 0Photography in the Holy Land, as a partof photography in the entire Middle East,began, as aforesaid, as early as 1839, withthe invention of photography. Thecountry saw the arrival of pilgrimphotographers and many tourists, mainlyfrom Europe, who photographed the land,as well as scientific and research41

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expeditions whose teams includedprofessional photographers. Photographersopened studios in Jerusalem (e.g.Armenian Yessayi Garabedian’s studiofounded in 1859), in Beirut (thephotography studio of the French Bonfilsfamily that operated throughout theMiddle East between 1867 and 1894;Félix Bonfils, the father, 1831-1885), andin Egypt. James Graham, John MendelDiness, Chalil Raad and the AmericanColony photographers also worked inPalestine. Among the first Jewishphotographers one may also mentionYeshayahu Raffaelovich and TsadokBassan who was born in Jerusalem andstarted taking pictures in 1900.

The landscape photographs that remainedfrom that period were taken, for the mostpart, on glass negatives in large formatcameras (from 10x15 to 24x30 cm.). Twoapproaches to photography, evolving fromEuropean traditions, dominated landscapephotography. One, which originated in theBritish tradition (e.g. Francis Frith), wastypified by an alienated and more technicalquality, reducing the human figure to asmall detail in a desire to magnify thebeauty of the landscape and itsdimensions. The photographs taken afterthe other, French tradition (e.g., MaisonBonfils whose photographers visited thesame sites) demonstrated a greater degreeof warmth and empathy toward thehuman figure, depicting it in close-up andas an integral part of the landscape.

Two additional approaches are discerniblein the photographs’ production and

display. Since color photography has notyet been invented at the time, all thephotographs were black and white.Production of postcards and photographswas mainly done in black-and-white andsepia (brown) on photographic paperdeveloped with special chemicals. In orderto enrich the visual experience, coloringtechniques prevalent in Europe, such ashand-coloring and the use of printingtechniques (e.g. photolithography) wereincorporated into the postcard andphotographic print industry. These printsusually included several color plates thatgenerated the colored prints, infusing thephotograph with life and “coloring” thecountry’s wilderness.

1 9 0 0 - 1 9 4 8Beginning in 1904 members of the SecondAliyah arrived in the country, among themthe Jewish photographers who emigratedmainly from Russia:Avraham Soskin (1881-1963), Ya’acovBen Dov (1882-1968), Shlomo Narinsky(1885-1960), Shmuel Yosef Schweig(1902-1984), and others. The localphotography centers moved to Tel Aviv,Jerusalem, and Haifa. The first Zionistcongresses (beginning in 1897) discussedthe need in visual representations of therenewed Zionist settlement in Eretz-Israel.Thus the Zionist funds – the JewishNational Fund (1901) and Keren HayesodFoundation Fund (1920) – approachedthe country’s active photographers askingthem to provide photographs for thepolitical and propagandist needs of theZionist movement. Due to dissatisfactionwith the results, Jewish-Austrian 40

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photographer Leo Kann (1885-?) was senton a photographic expedition of thecountry in 1912. Since then photographershave been influenced by the expectation topose the human figure at the focal point oflandscape images portraying the renewedland. Situating the “Zionist” at the centerof the composition did not preventphotographers from reinforcing theiraesthetic viewpoint on the country, andmany left behind photographs with highaesthetic quality, equal to the works oftheir European and Americancontemporaries.

The fifth wave of immigration (Aliyah), inthe wake of the Nazis’ rise to power in1933, brought many photographers from

Europe to Eretz-Israel. Some had alreadypracticed photography back in theircountries of origin and even studied in art schools. Among the most prominentwere Zoltan Kluger, Helmar Lerski, Lazar Dünner (1912-1994), and Jakob Rosner (1902-1950). Most of themwere absorbed into the photographydepartments of the Zionist funds, bringingthe photographic style customary inEurope, mainly in Russia and Germany.That style featured images of the “newman” formulated as part of the influencesof the “New Objectivity” movement andphotojournalism (that introduced thelight, user-friendly 35mm Leica camera)which evolved at the time – a style thatwould be called henceforth “newphotography.” This photographic trendadopted the same aesthetic values prevalentin Europe, thus transforming the figure ofthe pioneer into the image of the “NewJew” in Zionist propaganda. The humanfigure thus becomes a central element inthe photographic frame, a symbol of theJew’s revival within the matrix of hisnative landscape. It unites with thelandscape to form a single,two-dimensional surface. With thedevelopment of photographic equipmentand the use of film with high sensitivity tolight, the use of clouds in the frameincreases. The combination of the humanfigure raising its eyes to the sky, the vastlandscape, and the motion of clouds abovebecomes the prevalent image of the period.

Alongside the professional photographersthere were many self-taught photographers39

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such as David Serry (1913-1981), takingsimilar pictures. Serry’s photographs,however, are infused with a softer andmore personal air, as he was notcommitted to propagandist dictates.During that time, several Arab andArmenian photographers continued towork in the country in a style resemblingthat of 19th century photographers, bothin terms of the choice of composition andthe emphasis on private rather thannational documentation. Among these onemay mention Chalil Raad, GarabedKrikorian and also Elia Kahvedjian(1910-1999), who preserved the spirit ofearly documentation, whereby he unfoldedhis personal story as an orphan of theArmenian Genocide (Kahvedjian himselfappears in several photographs depictingthe country’s landscapes, such as boat rideon the Jordan River).

1 9 4 8 - 1 9 7 3After the establishment of the State ofIsrael the need for Zionist propagandaphotographs decreased considerably, andmany unemployed photographers wereforced to change careers. Some left thecountry or passed away, others continuedin private activity, and yet others werehired by commercial and public bodies:the written press that developed andincreased the space dedicated to “color”reportages; the new national institutions,such as the Government Press Office andthe IDF; public companies such as SolelBoneh and Israel Shipyards.

The prominent photographers, amongthem Paul Goldman, Beno Rothenberg,

Werner Braun, Maxim Salomon, BorisCarmi, David Rubinger, Amiram Erav,Peter Merom (b. 1919), and MichaBar-Am, were mostly self-taught. Thesephotographers were chiefly influenced byphotojournalists throughout the world,such as Henri Cartier-Bresson who coinedthe notion of the “decisive moment” (themoment in which an occurrence reachesits peak and should be photographed),Robert Capa, and others. Thequintessential landscape photographers ofthis generation were influenced by thefamous American landscape and naturephotographers whose works werepublicized via books, magazines andexhibitions. The best known among them,Ansel Adams, became renowned forsublime landscape photographs thatmanifested technical mastery of theequipment, sometimes eliciting the feelingthat his nature was more beautiful than thereal one. Edward Weston became knownfor sensual still-life photographs, and thenatural elements in his close-ups wererendered nearly abstract. The photographyexhibition that had the greatest impact onthe generation that grew up after theestablishment of the State of Israel was TheFamily of Man, curated by Americanphotographer Edward Steichen, whichdebuted in New York in 1955, andtraveled to Israel in 1958. The showplaced the human figure at its core bypresenting photographs from variouscountries according to a cross-section oflife cycles. It was intended to convey alofty idealist message: the entire world isone big human family. 38

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Concurrently, personal photography,uncommitted to national demands, startedto evolve, manifested in three major areas:war photography, nature and landscapephotography, and architecturephotography. The most prominent amongthe nature-landscape photographers at thetime was Peter Merom, member ofKibbutz Hulata. In 1954 he begandocumenting the draining of Lake Hula inphotographs exhibited at the Tel AvivMuseum in 1957. This was one of the firstphotography exhibitions staged at theMuseum, and was aesthetic rather thannational. The exhibition photographs wereincluded in Merom’s famous book, TheSong of a Dying Lake, published in 1960.

Many photographers who operated at thetime were employees at the postcardcompany Palphot (Palestine Photography)founded by Jehuda and Tova Dorfzaun in1934, a company whose productionsrepresented both the open Eretz-Israelilandscape and the development of urbanlandscapes. Despite the fact that duringthose years photographers were influencedby the exhibition The Family of Man,which situated man at its focal point, thehuman figure in 1950s and 1960slandscape photographs is once againdwarfed and confronted by the heroiclandscape of the new State. Many of theworks by photographers active in Israel atthe time, whether amateur or professional,found their way into the Israeliphotography yearbooks (1964-1971)edited by Merom. These publicationsemphasized aesthetic values and calculated

compositions, and only rarely presented apersonal statement. From this point on,local landscape photography splits betweena consecration of the aesthetic and apersonal statement.

1 9 7 3 - 1 9 9 1These years were characterized by anincreased desire to document the personalexperience, to draw away from mobilized,engaged photography, and to createphotography that was neither informative,nor journalistic, but merely artistic. In thewake of the Yom Kippur war (1973),photographers who studied in schools ofart and photography in Europe and theUnited States returned to Israel. Manybegan developing a visual dialogue withphotographic trends overseas, whilerelating to their locale, their families andtheir private past. They disregarded thelocal photography reviewed thus fardeeming it either recruited art or toopoetic. Robert Frank’s local, personal,black-and-white snapshots and GaryWinogrand’s color photographs have had atremendous impact on this generation. Inthis context one may mentionphotographers Dalia Amotz (1938-1994),Yosaif Cohain (b. 1945), Oded Yedaya,Shuka Glotman, Simcha Shirman(b. 1947), Aliza Auerbach (b. 1940), Pesi Girsch (b. 1954), Joel Kantor, amongothers. The new photographs are moreintense, compressed and emotional. Thehuman figure appears and disappearsintermittently; at times it occupies thecenter of the photograph, at other times itis nowhere to be found in a given series.37

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The human figure is ascribed a moreconceptual, symbolic, at times evenpolitical meaning.

1 9 9 1 - 2 0 0 2From the mid-1990s the familiarlandscape matrix prevalent in the firstyears of local photography (1855)re-surfaces. It is typified by largephotographic formats, reduction of thehuman figure to the point ofdisappearance, and a return to the use ofcolor as a dominant element. Series ofphotographs presented one next to theother recall the panoramas prevalent in the19th century. A conspicuous influence onlocal photography in this period may beattributed to the generation of Germanphotographers inspired by the coupleBernd and Hilla Becher, called the“photographers-topographers-typologists.”6

Photographer Jeff Wall, who directedscenes in the American landscape partlyborrowed from art history, has also had agreat impact.

Today, the field of local landscapephotography is practiced byartist-photographers, among them Roi Kuper (b. 1956), Gilad Ophir(b. 1957), Eyal Ben Dov, Sharon Ya’ari(b. 1966), Orit Siman-Tov (b. 1971),Michal Rovner, Ori Gersht. Many of themdepict “mute” landscapes entirely devoidof human figures or ones where the figuresare blurred. Their photographs often revealsigns and traces left behind by man.Unlike Cartier-Bresson’s perception of the“decisive moment” formulated in the

1930s, which attributes crucial significanceto the photographer’s location and themoment of pressing the shutter releasebutton, the perception of “the otherdecisive moment“ emerges. This newperception emphasizes the moment thatthe photographer feels is the decisivemoment; in historical terms or to thebystander, possibly nothing happens, butas far as the photographer is concerned,something highly valuable to photographyoccurs (such as the appearance of a littlewavelet in Roi Kuper’s seascape). It is aninner moment uninfluenced by externalevents.

Israeli landscape photography not onlyreturns to documenting the transformationof the country’s appearance vis-à-vis the

36

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large immigration waves, for example, butalso resumes criticizing the mastery ofcapitalism, the accelerated construction ofhouses, neighborhoods and shoppingcenters, roads and infrastructures thatcover the country with a “coat ofconcrete.” Furthermore, it addresseslandscape transformations as a result ofmilitary constraints. Via technical aids anddigital techniques, as well as by large-scaleprints previously impossible,photographers now create spectacularimages. Add to this a premeditated choiceof titles, a not-necessarily-“correct”printing and allusions to currenttheoretical contexts, and we will find thatlocal photography places itself in a newlocus. At the same time, the majority ofphotographers operating today are a partof the capitalist-consumerist society that

they criticize, and their work appeals tothe art market.

While art photographers present a personalapproach to the changing scenery,landscape and nature photographers,whether amateur, professional orcommercial, engage in elaborate andbeautifying documentation of thelandscape, just like landscapephotographers one hundred and sixty yearsago and ever since. Today the photographsare infused with gloss and color resultingfrom advanced printing possibilities andsophisticated technical aids. The works ofthese documentary photographers aremainly printed in tourism and recreationmagazines, such as Teva Va-Aretz andMasa Acher, or in popular photographybooks, such as Skyline/Archaeology; LookingTwice at the Land of Israel; and PanoramicIsrael – Israel 360˚.

***

As in Tchernichovsky’s poem, theexhibition begins with the sea (Bonfils’ssea), continues with a lake (Merom’s LakeHula) and the sea (in the works ofShirman and Kahvedjian), and concludeswith the sea (Kuper’s sea, and the one seenthrough the gallery windows in HaifaBay). In-between it is delineated by themountains (Hermon, Tabor, Gilbo’a,Givat Hamoreh, Samaria and the JudeanDesert Mountains). The viewer is invitedto take his “walking stick” and stroll alongthe photographed paths; to wander amongthe photographs as if he were the35

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photographer himself, and the place wherehe stands – the position of the cameradirected toward the country’s landscapes.

Until the establishment of the State ofIsrael, and as an echo of the landscapesthat were here in the early days of Zionistsettling, Tchernichovsky’s words “Man isnothing but […] the image of his nativelandscape” were commonly accepted.Indeed, the photographs on display reflectthe local landscape and the image itcreated in the heart of the man whosought to be a part of it. Since the early20th century, as the Zionist movement,the Turkish and British governments, andsubsequently the State of Israel beganchanging and reshaping the country’sappearance, one may reverse this saying toread: Native landscape is nothing but theimage of the man creating it.

Notes

1. Shaul Tchernichovsky (1875-1943), an

excerpt from the poem “A Man is Nothing

But,” (ca. 1925), free translation.

2. Avishay Ayal, “Land, Landscape, Gaze,

Painting,” exh. cat. Our Landscape: Notes on

Landscape Painting in Israel (Haifa: The Art

Gallery, University of Haifa, 2004), p. 26.

3. Overview exhibitions: Time Frame: ACentury of Photography in the Land of Israel,

Curator: Nissan Perez, The Israel Museum,

Jerusalem, 2000; Photography in Palestine in the

1930s-1940s, Curator: Rona Sela, Herzliya

Museum of Art, 2000; From Mirror to Memory:

One Hundred Years of Photography in the Landof Israel, Curator: Vivienne Silver-Brody,

Mané-Katz Museum, Haifa, 2000; KKL-JNF:

Pictures from the Blue Box, 1903-2003, Curator:Gadi Dagon, Reading Power Station, Tel Aviv,2003. Retrospectives: I Photograph History:Eliyahu Cohen, The Uri and Rami NehushtanMuseum, Ashdot Yaacov, 1995; Tsalmania inTel Aviv: Rudi Weissenstein, Reading PowerStation, Tel Aviv, 2002; Avraham Soskin: ARetrospective, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2003;Shimon Korbman, Eretz-Israel Museum, TelAviv, 2004; Paul Goldman: Press Photographer,1943-1961, Eretz-Israel Museum, Tel Aviv,2004. Books: Documentors of the Dream:Pioneer Jewish Photographers in the Land ofIsrael, 1890-1933, ed. Vivienne Silver-Brody,1998; Photographers of Palestine/Eretz-Israel/,1855-2000, ed. Guy Raz, 2003. Combinedpainting-photography exhibitions: MarkedLandscapes: ‘Landscape-Place’ in ContemporaryIsraeli Art, Curators: Haim Maor and studentsof the Curatorship course, Ben Gurion

34

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1992,Unt i t l ed,GirschPesi

University of the Negev, 2003; A Point of View,

Curator: Ellen Ginton, Tel Aviv Museum of

Art, 2004.

4. Quoted in: Ellen Ginton, “A Point of View,”

exh. cat. A Point of View: Works from the

Museum Collection and Loans (Tel Aviv: Tel

Aviv Museum of Art, 2004), unpaginated.

5. Other important American landscape

photographers are Carlton Watkins, 1860;

Timothy O’Sullivan, 1868; Edward Weston,

1937; Minor White, 1959; Paul Caponigro,

1968. As an example of two photographs that

maintain a dialogue with Adams, one may

mention: (I) Dalia Amotz, Road in the Judean

Desert, 1975: At the outset of her career Amotz

was influenced by Adams’s photography (ShaulKnaz in Dalia Amotz, Photographer, ed. SarahBreitberg-Semel, Tel Aviv Museum of Art,2000, pp. 124-125 [Hebrew]). Thisphotograph is almost an illustration of Adams’sRoad in the Nevada Desert, 1960). Amotz goesout to the desert and photographs a desolateroad at the heart of the wilderness, almost withthe same composition. Her 1973 Dir Samitseries also seems to be influenced byphotographs taken by Adams in New Mexicoback in 1929. (II) Gilad Ophir, El Capitan,1995: Ophir chose the title given by Adams (aswell as other American photographers such asCarlton Watkins) to his famous 1968photograph of the cliff in Yosemite Park. WhileAmotz attempted to resemble Adams, Ophiropted for that title to enhance the ironyinherent in photographing a deserted quarry asan Israeli landscape. Adams himself wasinfluenced by earlier landscape photographers,one of whom may have inspired Narinsky’sphotograph of the Ain-Fara Ravine(1905-1914) which manifests a strikingresemblance to photographs by Adams andWatkins. If Ophir had been conscious of thisphotograph, he might have chosen a more localtitle for his own photograph.6. Photographers who documented naturallandscapes and urban landscapes via series thatrepeated the same photographic theme in alarge number of variations to present slightchanges in the landscape.

33

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2000,Band)Rubber(Red

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1990,P ioneersseriesthefrom,HayardenMishmar

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1867-1878,R ive rJordan,Bonfils

– Adams, Ansel, Examples: The Making of 40

Photographs (Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co.,

1983).

– Jussim, Estelle, & Elizabeth Lindquist-Cook,

Landscape as Photograph (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1985).

– Meinig, D.W., (ed.), The Interpretation of

Ordinary Landscapes (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1979).

– Mitchell, W.J.T, “Holy Landscape: Israel,

Palestine, and the American Wilderness,”

Critical Inquiry, vol. 26: 2 (2000): 193-223.

– Mitchell, W.J.T., “Imperial Landscape,”

Landscape and Power (University of Chicago

Press, 1994, 2002).

– Onne, Eyal, Photographic Heritage of the Holy

Land, 1839- 1914 (Manchester Polytechnic,

1980).

– Perez, Nissan N., Focus East: Early

Photography in the Near East, 1839-1885 (New

York and Jerusalem: Harry N. Abrams /

Domino Press / The Israel Museum, 1988).

– Silver-Brody, Vivienne, Documentors of the

Dream: Pioneer Jewish Photographers in the Land

of Israel, 1890-1933, (Jerusalem and

Philadelphia: Magnes Press of the Hebrew

University & JPS, 1998).

– Yeshayahu, Nir, The Bible and the Image: The

History of Photography in the Holy Land,

1839-1899 (Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press, 1985).

21

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1975,Deser tJudeantheinRoad,AmotzDalia