Rendering №1

The headline of the article is The Art of Ori Gersht. The article was published on February 22, 2013. The author of the article is Geva Kra Oz.   The purpose of the article is to give the reader some information about a fine arts photographer Ori Gersht.

The author reports that this photographer is known for his focus on historical events of violence and war. According to the text Ori Gersht was born in 1967 in Tel Aviv. He is renowned and respected as both an artist and as a professor of Photography at The University for the Creative Arts in Rochester, Kent. UK. Ori Gersht is represented by Angles Gallery in Los Angeles, CRG Gallery in New York, Mummery + Schnelle Gallery in London and Noga Gallery in Tel Aviv. In 2012, Gersht's show "History Repeating" was mounted at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and "This Storm is What We Call Progress" was shown at the Imperial War Museum in London.

The writer claims that Ori's work explores expansive themes of life, death, violence and beauty. By conjuring up images of sites with historical significance like Sarajevo and Auschwitz, the Judean Desert. The Lister Route in The Pyrenees and the Galicia region of The Ukraine. On provokes a sense of the events that once took place and presents them as symbols of emotional disturbance. These scenes may seem innocent or ordinary, but the artist lends them a context that touches on the emotional resonance of these events, evoking a sense of violence and haunted by the ghosts of war-refugees.

Nevertheless, Gersht has also produced a still life series in which he touches on the correlations between photography, technology and optical perception. All this is done at a crucial moment in time as digital technology brings great breakthroughs at the same time threatening to change the face of photography forever. Early photography history is combined with theoretical dialogue creating photographic images and films that shatter the boundaries of the genre of still life, while the artist captures the stunning yet destructive images with cutting edge technology.

Furthermore, Gersht's photographic work and films are often comparable to paintings in their display. Frames are found surrounding monitors displaying films while his photographs offer unobstructed access with no material separating the surface from the viewer. In his work Gersht often recalls Romantic portrayals of the sublime, building on past patterns in photography, from the spectacular panoramas of Andreas Gursky and Sally Mann to works by Mark Rothko and J.MW Turner.

The author states that Gersht's photographs and films evoke a meditation on life, loss, destiny and chance often using The Landscape as a motif representing a place, idea and an art historical symbol. His work hints to the catastrophic violence of events such as the French Revolution. The Spanish Civil War, the Bombing of Hiroshima and even the suicide bombs that Gersht experienced during his childhood in Israel.

The author comes to the conclusion that engaging in the difficult space of pushing the photographic camera to its limits, while working in innovative ways with film and video, truly distinguishes Ori from his counterparts. Furthermore, his highly researched aesthetic possesses an instinctive and innovative approach to the materiality of his medium and, as a result, contributes to the impact that his work has on its viewers.

Having read this article I immediately looked up the work of this photographer and I can say that his works are really impressive.