Ori Gersht’s first solo British exhibition is located in the inspired
setting of London’s Imperial War Museum, co-curated by Photo Works head of
programme Celia Davies the visually and conceptually stunning exhibition is
comprised of three sections, including photographs, film installations and
text. “This storm is what we call progress” entitled after Illuminations:
Essays and Reflections by famous German- Jewish literary critic Walter Benjamin,
re-examines our relationship with debris after past events. Drawing inspiration
from the second world war and using photography as a metaphor for history,
Gersht explores the representation of past and present and the links and
ruptures between physical traces, cultural symbols and memories in a visually
sublime manner.”I am interested in the formal tension that exists between
brutal violence and delicate and poetic beauty. Often in those extreme moments
of violence there are enchanting pockets that are crucial for our survival as
human beings” (Ori Gersht, 2012).
Night Fly 1 Chasing Good Fortune
Upon entering the exhibition you are immediately immersed by the
magnificent print “Against the tide: Isolated” from the series of photographs “Chasing Good Fortune”. The series
explores notions of the shifting symbolism of the Japanese Cherry Blossom. With
its early links to Buddhist concepts of renewal, Gersht translated this idea
into the field of conflict and photographed clusters of Cherry Blossom at sites
in Hiroshima where trees grew in contaminated soil. Gersht spent time
photographing its presence at memorial sites. The photographs push the
technical boundaries of photography, taken at night in low light conditions,
many of the photographs present reality in a different way to our own mundane
experiences. As a result they adopt a disjointed and textural quality; Gersht
describes this “As a return to the atomic
particles of the image”. This destructive quality acts as a reflection of
Gersht’s interest in the tensions between brutal violence and poetic beauty.
The aesthetic beauty of this series of photographs transcends into the meanings
behind them.
A series of transcendent prints from “Chasing good fortunes” guide you
around the space until subsequently, you are faced with the first dual channel
film Evaders. The film follows the ill-fated journey of Walter Benjamin through
the “Lister Route” in his endeavour to escape Nazi-occupied France. As you
enter the dim room you are primarily greeted by a haunting monologue taken from
Benjamin’s last text “A Klee painting
named “Angelus Novus” shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away
from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is
open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His
face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees
one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it
in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make
whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got
caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them.
The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned,
while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call
progress.” ( Walter Benjamin 1968).The
two screens of the film are divided into a close up figure walking towards us
showing human struggle, and the right, the figure walking away through
beautiful diverse landscape fading in and out of our view. What is impressive
about the film is that it does not create a sentimental nor historical account
of the event.
Concluding the exhibition is the third section, Will you Dance for me?
The second dual screen film in the exhibition features an elderly Israeli woman,
Yehudit Arnon as she recounts the experience of being a young woman in
Auschwitz and the consequences of refusing to dance at an SS Officer's Christmas
party. As punishment, Arnon spent the night standing barefoot in the freezing
snow. That night night, she vowed that if she were ever to leave Auschwitz
alive, she would dedicate her life to dance, and she did. The split screens
create a beautiful juxtaposition of the light physical space of the landscape
and the dark physiological space of the room, as we watch Yehudit constantly
drift in and out of a pool of light, gracefully rocking such as her dance, we
are reminded of a frail woman, whose strength is faded but her spirit remnants.
The falling snow provides a melancholic beauty, disguising the brutality of her
story. It provides a powerful finale to the exhibition, reminding us of the
strength of the human spirit that is an integral part of our survival.
What is most interesting about the exhibition is how it explores without
literal depictions of war; instead it provides a deeper and intricate
interpretation. One of the strongest points is that the exhibition still
resonates the pain and destruction of war, Gersht has approached the matter
with sensitivity and sincerity yet avoiding any possible romanticisms of
conflict, this is also reinforced through the setting of the Imperial War
museum providing a poignant reminder of the true grit and struggle of war.
In conclusion Ori
Gersht’s “This Storm is What We Call
Progress” is a complex, compelling and powerful interpretation of past
anguish, and how we cannot heal the past, but enhance our understandings and
not loose sight of what we have learnt.
http://www.iwm.org.uk/exhibitions/ori-gersht-this-storm-is-what-we-call-progress
http://www.mummeryschnelle.com/pages/gersht.htm
Here is a fantastic insight into the exhibition by Ori Gersht and PhotoWorks.
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