Leora Laor
1. From the series “Wanderland”, 2002-2004
Lambda print
Courtesy of the artist
2. From the series “Pilgr-Image”, 2010-2015
Pigment printing on archival paper
Courtesy of the artist
The enigma of Jerusalem, the mystery of the city’s spirit, sanctity as an urban riddle – these are the themes at the center of Leora Laor’s exhibition. The enigmatic nature of her works relates mainly to the temporal dimension – theatrical and fantastic, a product of computerized digital processing.
In the exhibition, the artist combines two series related to sacred sites in Jerusalem: the Meah She’arim neighborhood is photographed in the series “Wanderland” (2002-2004), and the Church of the Sepulchre is the subject of the series “Pilgr-Image” (2010-2015). Through the representation of the believer at these sites, Laor sheds light on the conflicted human condition in contemporary society. Her works emphasize the yearning for a metaphysical dimension in the life of modern urban man, awash with feelings of alienation and loneliness. Her photographs seek to convey human strength and weakness as one, using bright colors, unexpected magnifications of the frame, and more.
In Laor’s works, tension can be felt between private and public territory.
She is influenced by the conventions of cinematic photography, although she locates her images in reality rather than in a fictional world. A she explains it, “the public space is the space where the photographer and the photographed object reflect each other.”
The titles of the series contain a double meaning. In “Wanderland,” the word “wander” refers to wanderers in the general, and the Wandering Jew in particular, as opposed to “land,” which symbolizes rootedness. In “Pilgr-
Image,” the division of the word “pilgrimage” emphasizes the word “image,” reflecting Laor’s preoccupation with images related to this theme. According to her, “like pilgrims, I collect remnants. The pilgrims I have photographed become the remnants.” The artist focuses on the participants of the religious ritual, the act of worship itself. “In many of her images devout women in kneeling positions, reclining on the slab, are gazed at from above, and from behind, their faces often covered in isolation where they are di-contextualized or grouped together and on their own.”*
Laor is interested in the interruption of daily life, in the presence of figures that seem to emerge from their context and undergo a transformation, appearing against a blurry, semi-abstract background (sometimes recalling the works of German painter Gerhard Richter). Her works repeatedly express a yearning for a different time, for worlds that open up momentarily before they elude us forever. These realistic-fictional materials reveal to us the artist’s world of photographic poetry. Her figures – like those in “Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland” – are tenuous. Despite being definite figures photographed in specific conditions and places, they seem to have emerged out of nowhere.
Leora Laor was born in Jerusalem, 1952; lives and works in Jerusalem