Catalogue of Adi Nes Photography This comprehensive catalogue of the artist, Adi Nes, was first published when his exhibit at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art opened in the Spring of 2007. The catalogue covers four series of staged photographs which Nes created since the beginning of the 1990 s: Soldiers, Young Boys, Prisoners (a project for the fashion journal, Vogue Hommes International) and Biblical Stories. Adi Nes breathtaking photographs are the fruits of complex staging and high quality lighting and film. The images deal with themes of humanity and masculinity while investigating Israeli aspects of identity. Nes often borrows images from mythology, Art History, and the history of photography. The Soldiers series: A different side of Israeli soldiers than that which the media usual provides is revealed here. Judges Verdict in Awarding the 1999 Prize of the Minister of Science, Culture and Sport: Adi Nes work is bound up in one of the central debates engaging the Israeli art world. That is, the debate surrounding the representation of Israeli identity. Adi Nes photographs challenge the conventional modes of representation of Israeliness. In his works, Nes reconstructs the central arena in which Israeliness takes shape: the army. This is not an action of reconstruction and reaffirmation of canonical symbols of Israeliness, but a dispute with them. Nes pulls rejected and repressed representations of Israeliness out of the drawer. These representations are embodied in his work in the form of homosexual masculinity. Nes advances these rejected representations out from the dusky periphery of the stage to its forefront, where they play the leading roles in the photographic scene - roles which were to date reserved for standard Israelis. The response is one of shock, and the observer is forced to re-evaluate his usual perception of Israeliness. The Young Boys series: This series is based on staged scenes of street life of youth in tenement housing projects. Each photo relates to a story from Greek Mythology dealing with male identity. Thus, one can find in these pictures Narcissus looking at himself reflected in a pool of water, the death of Adonis, the twins Castor & Pollux, the rape of Dionysus and more. The Prisoner series: In 2003 the magazine, Vogue Hommes International published Nes' subsequent series which focused on male prisoners. The theme which framed this entire series was the Prison; each picture rendered a different interpretation of the notion of imprisonment (being imprisoned in our mind, being the jailer, one's 'ego' as a type of prison...). The Biblical Stories series: Adi Nes Biblical Stories presents fourteen eye-opening and captivating photographs of marginalized Biblical heroes during low points in their lives. Nes juxtaposes identity-less homeless people and Biblical stories with harsh realities of present-day Israel and the myth of the Chosen People. What results are moving and thought-provoking photographs of a homeless Abraham pushing his son, Isaac, in a shopping cart full of recyclable plastic bottles; Noah shown in a drunken stupor, naked beside automatic video dispensing machines; Hagar as a beggar on a street corner; and Ruth & Naomi gleaning leftover food in an open air market, to name a few.
Hardcover. English. Tel Aviv Museum of Art. 2007. ISBN: 9789657161562. 156 pp. Good with dw in protective plastic. Book No: 63045
