Forces of Nature
Video and Photographic Works
March 15 to June 14, 2015

Ori Gersht views landscapes as being spaces of past occurrences which, in turn, are afforded a new sense of immediacy in his video and photographic works. Retracing the past throughout his own travels, he translates the process of remembering into powerfully expressive images. His works, as a result, are caught at the intersection between forces (of nature) and destruction on the one hand, and beauty (of nature) and transcendence on the other. 
 

Are we not touched by the same breath of air which was among that which came before? Is there not an echo of those who have been silenced in the voices to which we lend our ears today?

Walter Benjamin
 

Both in his film “Evaders” as well as in a series of photographs, the formidable panorama of the Pyrenees serves as a setting for attempted escapes (e.g. Walter Benjamin's) from the Nazis. In the video work “The Forest” an idyllic  scene of a Ukrainian woodland is suddenly disrupted by falling trees. This martial disturbance indicates that the forest is, in fact, an unsafe haven (sought out by Gersht's ancestors amongst others), failing to provide protection from discovery and deportation. Beyond the concrete historical context, all of the artist's works – photographs of exploding baroque bouquets for instance, or weathered olive trees in Israel – are remarkable metaphors for the duality of human nature – and the insoluble connections of past and present, life and death.

After having been featured prominently with three of his video works in our acclaimed exhibition “Still Moved” (2013/2014), “Forces of Nature” is Ori Gersht's first extensive solo exhibition in Germany.

Ori Gersht, born in 1967 in Tel Aviv, lives and works in London. From 1993–1995 he completed a Masters degree in photography at the Royal College of Art and the University of London. His photographic and video works have been featured in international exhibitions since 2000, most recently in London and Boston (2012), as well as in Tel Aviv and New York (2015).

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.