Ori Gersht
1967 (59 лет)Gersht approaches this challenge not simply through his choice of imagery, but by pushing the technical limitations of photography, questioning its claim to truth. Frequently referencing art history, Gersht's imagery is uncannily beautiful; the viewer is visually seduced before being confronted with darker and more complex themes, presenting a compulsive tension between beauty and violence. This has included an exploration of his own family’s experiences during the Holocaust, a series of post-conflict landscapes in Bosnia and a celebrated trilogy of slow-motion films in which traditional still lives explode on screen.
The Forest
Ori Gersht
The centrepiece of his major photographic and video exhibition, The Clearing, Ori Gersht’s powerful and haunting film was shot deep in the forests around Kosov in Ukraine, which were witness to atrocities against the local Jewish population — the artist’s family amongst them — during the Second World War. As the camera glides through the dense, sun-dappled forest, a tree falls heavily, and inexplicably, to the ground; and others soon follow, continuing out of shot, or heard but not seen. Afterwards, the silence of the place returns and, amongst so much that is still standing, we cannot be sure what we have just been witness to. Entranced by the hypnotic beauty of the projected image, then shocked by the ear-splitting sound of trees crashing to the ground, our immediate perception of the place is challenged, forcing us to imagine what might have happened here before.
The Forest
