Sharon Ya'ari
November 14, 2002 - January 12, 2003Press Release
Lisson Gallery is delighted to announce the first exhibition by Sharon Ya'ari at 29
Bell Street
Sharon Ya'ari (b.1966) takes photographs of what appear to be mundane scenes
from the Israeli countryside. Groups of people walk through the landscape,
dressed in casual weekend clothes; children gather together behind a tumbledown
brick wall possibly at the end of the school day; people visit a zoo where
spectators of an unknown animal are bathed in wintry light. Despite this
ostensibly ordinary subject matter, his photographs always ask questions of the
viewer: what are these people doing, where are they going, what are they talking
about?
The images that Ya'ari creates are in one sense documentary; people are
continuing to live a normal life despite the violent eruptions nearby. However,
on closer examination, the countryside begins to take on a sense of
claustrophobia under Ya'ari's gaze that perhaps contributes to our sense of
unease about these images. Often the green spaces fringe urban developments,
or a pylon intersects an otherwise empty landscape. While resolutely nonpolitical,
our knowledge of what is happening in nearby cities means they do not
offer the Arcadian ideal of retreat and rest previously associated with images of
the landscape. Instead we are left feeling unsettled and mildly disturbed by
Ya'ari's work.
Most of the images were taken in winter, giving the landscapes a foreign, shortlived
European hue of greeness. Ya'ari's digital intervention is minimal, almost
indiscernible, and yet it generates the desired enigmatic effect. The photographs
are composed with a painter's sensibility for framing devices, paths leading the
eye into the distance, and figures grouped according to compositional rules
established centuries ago. However, Ya'ari is indisputably a very modern master
of his chosen medium.
In 2002 Sharon Ya'ari has had solo exhibitions at Sommer Contemporary Art,
Israel, the Project Room at ARCO, Madrid and the Drexler University Art
Gallery, Philadelphia. He has also taken part in group exhibitions at Artistspace,
New York, Fotofest, Houston and LISTE 2002, Basel, Switzerland. He lives and
works in Tel Aviv.
Exhibition Images
Duvid, 2002 Colour photograph 22.8 x 30.4 cm