Leora Laor: Image of Light Image of Light is a body of photographs about looking. Using digital images taken in a public park in Jerusalem, Leora Laor connects traditional and contemporary ways of perceiving. By enlarging the pixilated image, she dismantles the photographic picture plane and redefines it as both a new technological creation and as a reinvestment in traditional methods of image-making. The subjects in Laor's work are elusive; figures appear fragile and lost in borderless environments. Our view of these subjects - which are often small in scale and occasionally silhouetted - is on the one hand simply voyeuristic, and on the other strangely omnipotent; we see them but they don't see us. We are the observers studying the movements of the human animal as it works, plays and socializes.
Image of Light challenges us to reevaluate our role as spectator.

http://www.stephendaiter.com

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Dvir Gallery / Leora Laor 1 Sept - 29 Oct, 2005

While some of the works in the show will be presented on this occasion for the first time, others – taken from the series Wanderland [2003] and Images of Light [2003-2004] – were previously exhibited in the artist’s solo shows in Paris and New York, and will be presented in the coming year in Chicago as well. The digital technology bestows Leora Laor’s work with its unique qualities. It enables Laor to represent urban and human landscapes as realistic as well as fantastic spaces, spanning between the banal, the tragic and the comic. Leora Laor [b.1952, Israel] practiced photography during the 1980’s in Israel and the US. Few years ago, after an interval of two decades, she decided to get back to photography once again. She was recently chosen as the 2005 laureate of the prestigious Leon Constantiner Prize for Israeli Photography, granted by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Her works are to be found in major private and public collections in and outside Israel, such as the collection of the Metropolitan Museum, NYC and those of the IBM and Coca Cola Corporations in the US.

http://www.dvirgallery.com

Andrea Meislin Gallery / Wanderland Dec 2 - Jan 22, 2005

The Andrea Meislin Gallery is pleased to present Wanderland, an exhibition of 41 photographs by Israeli artist Leora Laor. These digital video stills are surreal scenes of everyday people in Jerusalem's main public park and in Mea Shearim, the city's ultra-Orthodox religious neighborhood.
Wanderland is Laor's creation, conveying a dual meaning in name and image. Wander concerns human wandering and the wandering Jew, in contradistinction to the word land that signifies permanence. Counter to this stands the magic wand held by the artist.

Although the photographs are reminiscent of 19th century Realist and Impressionist styles, they are very much products of 21st century technology. After capturing the image from a great distance Laor enlarges the pixels to a point where the picture plane is close to being deconstructed; the predominant color of the image is then intensified, often evoking that color's corresponding mood.

Leora Laor last exhibited in New York in the early 1980s at Oggi Domani Gallery, Bess Cutler Gallery, and P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center. After a twenty-year hiatus, she was most recently featured in ParisPhoto 2004 where she was a finalist for the 1st Prix BMW. Laor's work is found in many private and public collections such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, IBM Corporation, Colgate Palmolive Corporation, Coca-Cola Corporation, and the McDonald Corporation.

http://www.andreameislin.com


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