Catalog of a Collection of Photographs by Gérard Allon in the Judaica Collection of the Harvard library

What characterizes contemporary Israeli art, and especially photography
and video, is that today’s artists try to increase public awareness
of each and every aspect of life in Israel. By inciting the viewer to reconsider
opinions and attitudes, they try to further action towards creating
a better and more just society. Given the actual situation, this
sounds utopian, but a fragment of optimism is absolutely necessary,
and artists are fulfilling their duty by pointing out wrongs and injustices,
while also still leaving open the possibility of a better future. For
most of these artists their works bear witness to their involvement in
the life of the country and to their commitment to improve both the
reality and the image of their homeland. In an environment where past
and present, the personal and the political are inseparable, Israeli
artists are endowed with the unique gift of transforming the art of living
into living art. Their contribution is not only to photography or the
arts, but to the building and functioning of Israeli culture in general.
Because of both physical and cultural distance, contemporary Israeli
photography and video remain to some extent peripheral on the international
scene. Even when they are featured in high profile venues
such as the Venice Biennial, they are still in a state of constant dialogue,
frequently in tension, and at times in conflict with universal trends. In
their attempt to become part of the mainstream and in step with contemporary
international trends, they very often create a most fascinating
synthesis of cosmopolitan values and of local cultural, social,
and political contexts.
In Israeli society, which is undergoing deep change and frequent crises,
the arts express the nation’s identity crises: the ethnic/religious, the
ideological, the national. In addition, Israelis are torn between myths
and remembrance, with each of these spheres inhabited by its own
ghosts. As Israeli society matures, religious and national myths are
being reconsidered in a modern perspective, leading to the breaking of
many traditional taboos. This in itself implies an often painful discontinuity
with past identities. Moreover, both nationally and individually,
Israel is burdened by the weight of memory: the Diaspora,
the Holocaust. The myth of the survivor, the many wars endured, and
the staggering number of casualties Israel has mourned, are still not
distant enough for objective consideration. In view of these heavy historic
burdens, many artists feel obliged to take a kind of inventory of
the irreparable in their work, but the traces of these social, political,
cultural, and economic factors are not always easily discernible. While
some artists tackle these subjects directly, others embed them in their
work through tangential implication, and yet others, totally ignoring
them, seek refuge in the personal and the imaginative.
The issues of memory and identity at various levels are ever present
in Israeli photography and video, even more so than elsewhere in the
world, given the country’s relatively short history and its brief duration
of cultural formation. Myths and historic and religious facts and
legends reside alongside the political reality. The new generation challenges
and reassesses these traditional notions, slaughtering many
“sacred cows” in the process. Powerful aesthetic statements are made
in the quest for artistic self-determination. In many instances the
viewer’s task is to discover not only the nature of the subject depicted,
but its significance too. From this point on, everyone can build his
own story drawing on the connotations drawn from the final image.
Israeli art, then, should be examined in relation to specific and current
geopolitical, social, and cultural conditions as well as through
the perspective of borders and the battle for territory, of war and terrorism,
conquest and occupation. These factors are inherent in the
arts in Israel.
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