Linguistic Turn

In her new exhibition, Ilit Azoulay presents five large-scale photographs that produce a creative and exciting viewing experience culminating in Red (2013) and Panic in Lack of an Event (2013). While her previous photographic projects – Room # 8 (2011) or The Keys (2010) – were characterized by a detailed and meticulous organization of objects on a white background, the new works spiral the gaze between different conditions, spaces, and artifacts, a viewing condition that seem to reject the inner logic of the earlier photographs. Both The Keys and Room # 8 resulted from Azoulay’s fascination with construction sites that contain buildings intended for demolition. In these abandon edifices she gleaned debris, hardware, work tools, and other found objects which she then brought to her studio and carefully cleaned, oiled, categorized, and eventually photographed. The virtual assemblage process was typified by reorganizing the objects in a fictive space that was staged in the photographer’s studio. These works relate to the theoretical discourse exploring the ontological status of the object, investigations regarding the museum and the archive as concepts, as well as questions of collecting, reconstructing, chance encounters, commemoration, and temporality. Azoulay’s artistic process included minor perspectival adjustments, alterations of scale, and intervention with Photoshop. These minute variations are visible in the final product and generate a disturbing effect that leads us to question, through the lens of the digital camera, the nature of sight and visual perception and to examine the gaps embedded in our sensory apparatus

Text by: Dr. Aya Lurie

** The gallery will be closed during the 55th Venice Biennale preview week (May 27th – June 3rd).