Adi Louria-Hayon / Objects of Desire

Fantastic, abstract imagery often serves the conscious as a memory or an obscure and vague object of desire that our imagination strains to capture. The human will to comprehend the elusive image as a complete object result in a disability rooted in limited perception while stressing the constant striving toward the unfathomable. This attempt to elaborate on the bounded yet unbounded human condition has been a central concern for philosophers and theologians who sought to define the individual's place in relation to the universe, the forces of nature and God.

Israeli photographer Leora Laor binds these phenomena of perception with human ephemerality displaying digital stills situating human figures on the enigmatic seam line bordering life and death, reality and dream, routine and fantasy. Laor deals with the tension between the limited and the un-limited, the finite and the infinite, urging the spectator to strive to comprehend the ungivenness of nature as well as human nature.

Images of Light were photographed during twilight hours or at night. Thus, in these images light exists but has no direct affinity to luminescence. The result is that figures occupy an urban landscape from which they are alienated. Laor uses her digital video camera to take stills, but is also deeply influenced by the continuous cinematic creation, filming short video clips from which she isolates individual frames. Both these technological processes allow her to create new dismantled works. The figures stand out clearly in the twilight from background where patches of light are cut through by dark shadows combined with intense color, creating an expressive atmosphere, principally stemming from dramatic backgrounds that provide fantastic scenery. Laor chooses to show the urban public park as no-place and the figures as anonymous. In situations where Laor "cuts" images from reality (she never stages them), the "picture" is built up or alternatively fades away. She creates an intensified object, boundless and timeless. Uncanny colors formulate a new unfamiliar setting where human figures seem to grow from within. As a result, the backgrounds seem chaotic, emphasizing the frail human condition and arousing primal inherent concepts and feelings of anxiety and death.

While photographing, Laor has tried to free herself from conscious thought and work intuitively. In this way she attempts to reach the irrational which is portrayed in the powerful and boundless landscape. In Image of Light #3 two people walk through the wilderness. Laor portrays her constant vision of isolated images wandering continuously in the wilderness. A mental picture which might be rooted in the fact that she is a second generation Holocaust survivor – her uncle was shot while walking and her mother roamed the streets. The frailty and loneliness of their lives is a central source of inspiration in her work.

The single lone image is portrayed throughout her work. In Image of Light #12 , a sole black silhouette of a woman is placed against a red-hued backdrop of emptiness. Laor develops the ideas of awe-inspiring nature, death, the sublime, and life's inescapable emptiness. The border where matter ends is emphasized. Like Ingmar Bergman's Totentanz – The Dance of Death (in The Seventh Seal ), Laor sets her figure on the border line between heaven and earth, emphasizing humanity's fragility and delicate temporality. This intensification of expression characterizes the Northern Romantic tradition. Casper David Friedrich attempted to revitalize the divine experience in a personal, secular world. The spiritual was displaced from traditional religious images to nature. Goethe stressed that infinite substance exists in man and in nature. Laor is concerned with this same idea. Although the woman in the photograph is frail, she is situated in the central axis of the composition manifesting, as in Freidrich's painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818), the classical idea of a human being as a microcosm striving for knowledge. Gerhard Richter in his painting of the sea ( Untitled , 1973) evolves this thought while completely removing the human figure, placing the viewer at the edge. In contrast, Laor's figure is prominent but the landscape is unfathomable, it is a great abiding object. The role of the image as silhouette is to make peace with the abstract landscape. It is the dissolution of the image but it subsists despite its dissolution. The recognizable figure humanizes the amorphic void – the landscape. The photograph is seen as hallucination, a daydream or a fantasy where the image signifies the real, the connection to our objective world and as long as it exists we will not fall into emptiness. Laor says: "the main concept is inaccessibility, the un-limited we cannot get rid of but we can also not find, and this is exactly why it cannot be avoided".

In Images of Light Laor makes an interesting move by replacing the untamed and grand nature found in Romanticism for a municipal urban park charged with expressionism. She chooses to blur the categories ascribed to the external sublime and internal desire and anxiety. In unifying man and nature, she reflects the human condition as transience.

Laor's painterly way of thinking and striving towards emptiness is further stressed in her words: "A perfect photograph will be white upon white, the perfect balance which can be obtained by nothingness. If you take a scale, it is perfectly balanced only when it carries nothing." However, Laor is trying to reach the perfect void by material means which she chooses to dismantle to a point where the fleshiness of the print is exposed. Thus the print becomes a Memento Mori in photographs showing decaying red fruit with a fish or single enlarged images with sfumato contours situated in banal interiors. "The monotonous infinite dismantling is acted upon in order to erase the living truth which is unique and in order to transfer it to the neutral totality of death."

Alan G. Artner, Chicago Tribune, Images extract visions from the commonplace, October 2005

Leora Laor's photographs at the Stephen Daiter Gallery are among the few digitally manipulated pictures I have seen that add to conventional photography and transform reality in an exciting and powerful way.

The artist has shot scenes with a long lens in a public park in Jerusalem with a video camera. She then used a computer to extract still images and work on their textures and colors. This has caused a superficial resemblance to the work of fellow-Israeli photographer Michal Rovner, though Laor's art is less conceptual and more than able to stand on its own visually.

Her pictures extract from common postures, gestures and deployments in landscape an atmosphere of apocalypse. Look at the work long enough and the images collapse again into the everyday. But they never quite lose all of their visionary aura, and as a result we see how the extraordinary is consistently based in the ordinary.

Some of the images are merely theatrical, when we feel the artist straining toward the mythic. But more often Laor succeeds in taking the posture or gesture beyond its immediate circumstances--so that the specific seems to aspire naturally toward the universal.

The artist exhibited frequently in the 1980s. After an absence, she resumed photographing only in the last five years. This is her first solo show in Chicago , and it's a strong introduction to a gifted artist in her 50s.

It will be fascinating to see where the work goes from here.

Uzi Tzur, Leora Laor, Dvir Gallery,Tel-Aviv, Ha'aretz, Litreture & Culture, September 2005

Leora Laor creates an enigma and a tale, a contrast that arises from her photos and the way they are set up in the gallery.

Laor, a photographer who was active in Israel and the US in the 80's, has recently resumed her photography. These photos have been exhibited in one-man exhibitions in New York, Chicago and Paris, as have the "Wonderland" and" Images of Light" series, of which a single video frame, digitally processed, is exhibited in the Israel Museum in the "Oorim" exhibition. In Dvir gallery Laor shows her latest works.

The enigma relates mainly to time, the time in which the photos take place; a time which is not real but rather borrowed time, theatrical time or time of the theatre of life. The artificial digital processing of the light and images enhances the sense of fantasy. The fact that some of the photos are single frames taken from a video film gives them an element of inner movement. Also the "real" photos have a theatrical air, where time is borrowed, in the melancholic escape to the ball room dance halls (Images from Ettore Scola's film "Le Bal" come to mind).

Remarkable is the way Laor treats the photos of the theatre stage, as if they were pictures of real life. She erases the line between the two, and the actors and the set become unknown heroes. It is this duality that creates the enigma, and the technical aspect, the synthetic realism, completes the beauty of the picture.

The way the pictures are set up in the gallery reedits, like cinematic editing, the series Theatre, Dance Hall and Still Life in an emotional and sensual fashion. The editing also emphasizes the notion of a riddle, and the spectators move through pieces and bits of stories, trying to reassemble them. In the picture "No Title (A Tribute to Happiness)", the theatre scene resembles Gerhard Richter's works of photographic painting, in that the blurred contours express an outer and inner movement, a blur that vibrates form the black and whiteness of the suit of the man, who holds the hand of a woman wearing an old-fashioned floral dress. They are distant from one another, their faces are nearly erased, and the spotlight seems like a sunset. Theatre and real life fuse together into a poem of late love. Laor processes the tone and light of a photograph taken without the flash, of a dance hall that appears to be nearly static, until the desired texture is achieved. The bodies are illuminated in a Flemish-like light, and the black hair of the dancing woman dissolves into the surrounding darkness. The photo suggests the presence of other couples; a hint of a wall and a mirror enable the reconstruction of the entire hall.

A black and white photo describes a large and shiny clay cup sitting on a table cloth littered with crumbs. It is a rustic and coarse still live, as if taken from an illustration to an old Spanish book. Next to it is a color photo of a fair middle-aged man, who looks like he belongs to another decade, sitting in a foreign bar. The light is melting away his figure. He stares at us in a suspicious, slightly feminine look. In front of him are numerous beer glasses and behind him, framing him, hangs a large obscure painting on a theatrical scarlet piece of velvet, which stirs up thoughts of having the last drink.The combination of the clay cup and the bar scene creates something almost mystical.

Like a solitary stream of bright light is " Alma ", a photo that alludes to the serene portraits of girls by Reinke Dijkstra. With her penetrates daylight into the nocturnal and theatrical scenes, like a stream of the present, of exposed life among the fractures of veiled reality. It is a real photograph, not digitally processed like the others, an exception that does not reflect on the rest. Youthful and sensual Lolita, beautiful in her red top, stands alert yet somewhat shy; her gaze turned away.

Further along is a close-up of a light bulb hanging from the ceiling and casting its light on it. This photo exposes the light and darkness, the source of light that gnaws at the darkness, in a brilliant composition.

Another photograph of the dance hall. The figures move in a solemn and romantic elegance; the light that is projected from the bodies is soon swallowed up by the black clothes, and in the corners the shadows are dancing.

Laor photographs also still life that is stained and that yearns to other times. The picture seems to be taken from a distant past where the colors were enriched and artificial: a picture of glossy fruits and berries, and beside them a wooden or porcelain fish, which emphasizes them being preserved in poetic artificiality.

In another photo, a man's face emerges from the dark, and the warm light seemingly melts away the flesh of his face and beautiful lips, and the whiteness of his shirt turns into real florescent light. His profile, with the sideburn on his cheek and the felt hat on his head, reminds one of a Bavarian character taken from an early film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
The four pictures together, the light bulb, the dance hall, the still life and the man's face, compose a small play in four acts.

A woman who appears in the above mentioned picture is in another one holding a woman with short hair, and the blackness of their clothes merges them together into one entity. The light is Vermeer-like yet grained, thus creating mysterious yet extremely worldly and feminine characters. It is a brilliant composition of intimacy that exists in dance, which shivers around the edges.

The most enigmatic picture is "A Tribute to Adultery", a large black and white, theatrical and at the same time documentary photograph. It describes a dim stage, and on it is sitting a man in cotton pants and bare torso, in a position like a boxer. His face is distorted by the stage light that comes down like a beam and falls on the empty bed of fornication. Above, on a small screen, is the year 1968, apparently a time different from the real one. The table, bottle and glass on the right are blurred into a mirage. Although this is a picture of the theatre, there is a deceiving essence of reality in it.
"A Tribute to a 110 Heart Beats", a large and long black and white photograph, is rested against the wall and thus completes the standing position of the woman that is described in it. She is in the dark and wears a white turban that looks like a halo around her head. Her aging face is heavily made up, and in her light colored clothes she seems to be awaiting things yet to come, perhaps Fassbinder's character.
The combination of the boxer and the dancing women creates again a story with no plotline.

The exhibition ends in "Portrait of a Woman", which describes a bigger than life-size figure, who contains in her both real life and the theatre. Her face expresses strength and despair. It is the profile of a young woman whose seriousness is like that of an old woman, whose utter sadness is projected through every molecule of her body. Her hair is thick and black and the collar of her black coat is wrapped around her head like a wing. She looks like a Madonna for those doomed to a life in exiled, amazingly stoic and tragic.

In the context of quality of material and light, longing for another time, and brief encounters with other worlds, one must mention the highly recommended film "2046" by Wong Kar-wai, which processes realistic/fictional material into cinematic poetry.

Smadar Sheffi, melancohlya with fish, Ha'aretz, Gallery, September 2005

Leora Laor's beautiful and polished solo exhibition at the Dvir Gallery avoids, for the most part, the common photographic cliches that make it hard to tell different artists apart. Having said that, one work - a portrait of a girl - is entirely out of place in a show in which even the weaker works are distinguished by their fragility and vulnerability. It recalls the work of Dutch artist Reinke Dijkstra or the German artist Thomas Ruff, or any one of the hundreds of photogtapher students who followed them .The works in the show were all done over the last two years, since Laor's return to full artistic activity after a break of almosttwo decades. The results make it clear why her comeback has been so successful. The exhibition contains three series of photographs, though not displayed as separate groups. One is the theatrical performances, another of dance lessons, and the third of still lifes. In all cases Laor has crafted staged moments of reality, which filter out some of the roughness, the arbitrariness and the danger of the real thing. To viewers who are anaware that the subjects are staged, the photographs of theaters and dance schools may seem "normal" reality. The work "Untitled (A Tribute to '100 Heartbeats a Minute')", in which the references to an Israeli play, is espacially fine. The long, narrow black-and-white photograph (170 x 85 cms), which stands on the floor, leaning slightly against a wall, contains the somewhat forlon figure of a woman. It is a digital photograph, edited by computer ; but Laor manipulated it during the printing - the tradional way of altering a photograph - achieving a soft but unblurred pictorial quality. "Still Life with fish" - a photograph of red and purple fruit and vegetables next to a fish - conveys an especially strong sense of artificiality. There is something disquietling in the composition, a sense of things going awry. Does that feeling derive from the fact that the fish is lying next to the fruit bowl, rather than within it? Or from unconventional nature of the still life composition? Or thesense that Laor addresses still lifes as a genre that needs to reinvent itself, to favor "still" over "life", making death (as represented by the fish) the focus? The answer is unclear. The strong emotional impact of the work is mitigated by a far more tradional, black-and-white photograph of a pot-bellied jug, radiating its own internal light, like a classic still life. Laor's compassionate look at dance lessons makes no effort to expose loneliness or ragged corners, but concentrates gently, on movement and intimacy. The viewer, as a result, is invited to discover a measure of optimism in the quiet and introspective works, as if they signal a possibility of communication. The knowledge that the photography was done in a dance school, to which people come to be refashioned, to spend a little time in a different world, to be immersed in a harmless escapism - only strengthen the not-unpleasent sense of melancholy that infuses it. The point of departure of the theatrical photographs is a stage play, but the pictures are not documentary in character. The nonarchial feel comes not only from the deliberate blurring of the figure, but also from the choice of small moments. In "Untitled (A Tribute to Happiness)", a couple are holding hands and talking, but seem clearly ill as ease. The long blue curtain in the foreground establishes the context as a stage set, not a home. In her exhibition, Laor comes across as a seeker of sheltered and well-ordered places like dance schools and theaters, blending them to her will to create a still life composition. At the same time, she keeps her distance from them, avoiding the sharp detail and identifying feathers of the documentary - or the mien of the interrogator.

Adi Louria-Hayon, Fotografia Israeliana Contemporanea (catalogue), April 2005

Leora Laor's photographs underline the tension between private and public territory, formulating the modern urban self. Her vision is deeply influenced by cinematic conventions, yet the act of shooting situates the image in reality. The works presented here are taken from two series entitled Wanderland, 2003-4. The title Wanderland enfolds a double meaning in both name and image. Wander concerns human wandering in general and the Jewish wandering wand and history. It is opposed to Land which signifies permanence and deep-rootedness. Counter to this, stands the magic Wand held by the divine creation as well as by human creation, which are satisfied by the artist.
The first series, Images of Light, was taken in a public park in Jerusalem. The photographs carry a sense of awe to early modernism. The images shown here are characterized by a pictorial look connecting the digital image with the impressionistic and expressionistic compositions and brush work (from Courbet and Millet to Munch, Kirchner, Balla and others). Laor enlarges the pixels to a limit where the image is dismantled and the picture plane is redefined as a technological creation. It also becomes an application and expression of the picture as a code and map. Laor succeeds in connecting historical iconography and style with temporary works reminiscent of Gerhard Richter, setting the ambivalent nature of effacement realism.
In Image of Light #4, the running figure wearing a dress and carrying a basket signifies the na?ve and the legendary ideal order, as opposed to the depicted dynamic abstract background. This creates tension between the individual and the world emphasizing a horrendous contrast. A flight performed in a hostile landscape defines modernity's radicalization as a juggernaut realm. The elusiveness of the figure, situated in a large background, emphasizes its fragility and evasive nature. The photograph itself is a material remnant of a fleeting and evasive reality that is created in the combination with lightened substance. Susan Sontag views the unnoticed light, in relation to the photograph, as a "flashy medium", that is to say substance. Hence the theme of the work exists in the triple tension between light, matter and human landscape.
The second series, Untitled, is taken in Mea She'arim, an ultra-orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem. Here, Laor seeks to define the human urban condition at its extremist, choosing her sights where she can examine the self as seen by the 'other'. From this perspective her work not only documents or deals with aesthetics, but with ethics and social concerns. All the different aspects establish her definition of the self, its boundaries and its relation to the world.