5.2.2011 – 12.03.2011
Opening: Sat. 5.02.2011 at 12:00

Jerusalem Artists’ House
Shmuel Hanagid 12, Jerusalem

Crust
Like an image resurfacing in a vague memory, enveloped in a crust of oblivion, the photographs in Anna Hayat and Slava Pirsky’s exhibition exist in an enigmatic, faceless space. The meticulously executed photographs are charged with the weight of history, as if about to buckle under the weight of the cultural baggage they embody.

Through landscapes and portraits the duo is engaging in an artistic dialogue with works from the history of photography. The landscapes, taken in Jerusalem and the Judean Desert area, have preserved the feeling of a desolate, ancient landscape, as if the time stood still. The portraits too are illusive. Like a collection of holy icons they gaze from the walls, their faces spotted with the stains of time, their piercing, ascetic silence offering redemption and immortality. However, the preciseness, gentleness and aesthetics exhibited in the portraits also tell us of the way Hayat and Pirsky view their subjects: with great compassion and love for the art of photography, as well as for the photographed – friends, family members and house pets

Hayat and Pirsky photograph on Polaroid films, using a technique that gives the works additional picturesque depth, thus restoring some of the aura analogue photography used to have when it first appeared.

Shani Nahmias