Esther Shalev-Gerz

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Esther Shalev-Gerz (* 1948 in Vilnius , Lithuanian SSR ) is a photographer, concept and video artist. Shalev-Gerz has taught at numerous art schools in Europe, Australia and the USA. She lives in Paris (France).

biography

Esther Shalev-Gerz was born in Vilnius (Lithuania). In 1957 she immigrated to Jerusalem with her family. There she studied fine arts from 1975 to 1979 at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design , where she obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She spent 1980/81 in New York. Since 1981 she has participated in group exhibitions, among others at the Jerusalem Israeli Museum and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art . In 1983 she realized her first work in public space on the occasion of the Tel Haï Contemporary Art Meeting with the permanent installation Oil on Stone in Tel Haï (Israel). In 1984 she moved to Paris, where she has mainly lived since then, and began working on various projects in Europe and Canada.

In 1990 she received an artist scholarship from the DAAD and went to Berlin for a year. In 2002 she spent in the artist residency IASPIS in Stockholm. From 2003 to 2015 she taught as a professor at the Valand Art School . From February to June 2010, Ton image me regarde?! , ( Your picture looks at me ?! ) at the Paris National Gallery du Jeu de Paume for the first time showing 10 of their works together. In the same year she received a three-year project grant from the Swedish Science Council ( Vetenskapsrådet ) for her project Trust and the Unfolding Dialogue in the field of artistic research.

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In her work, the artist problematizes the constantly re-forming construction of the relationship between what is experienced and its narrative and analyzes the concept of the portrait, which she understands as a possible reflection of a person, a place or an event. Her works focus on the numerous facets and the heterogeneity of collective memory. The development of her installations, photographs, videos and works in public space always takes place in an ongoing dialogue with the people involved in the project, whose participation sets the accent: They win through their personal memories, stories, words, experiences, but also through their silence Working on form and content. The artist's works are a permanent investigation of different temporalities, preliminary spatial constructs and changing identities, places and stories that critically question our understanding of social functions and the meaning of artistic practice. In a text titled “The ongoing movement of memory”, Shalev-Gerz describes her approach as follows: “In my work in public space, a place is constructed in which a memory is activated through participation, that is, that moment is decisive , in which the viewer becomes a participant, in which, for example, he writes his name, raises his voice or sends in his photo. Through the traces that are created by these actions, the participants retain a memory of their own contribution to the realization process of the artistic work, which thereby immediately becomes a witness of their responsibility for their time. "

In an interview with the director of the Jeu de Paume, Marta Gili, Shalev-Gerz adds:

“I try to enter the space that opens up between listening and saying, in order to step out of the logic of the discourse, in other words to reach another space or to produce one with artistic means. It is a kind of "montage" of an intelligibility of the sensual [Jacques Rancière] or a memory other than that constructed by words or concepts, a memory that runs through the body and is captured by a glance. "

“As an artist, it is very important to me to have trust in the participants, whom I perceive as equals and whose participation is an essential element of the project. I believe that is what allows me to produce a job: trust in the intelligence of my counterpart. "

In his text “The Image of the Other”, which appeared in the exhibition catalog for “Is your picture an issue for me?”, Ulrich Krempel writes:

“One thing is certain: only speaking and listening, passing on what we have experienced, of pictures, of touching glances and eye-gazing, can bring us to the point where memory gains formative power. As Walter Benjamin put it: “History is like a text in which the past has embedded images.” It is important to develop that, to make the material of our present, that which the work of memory can provide us - with templates, with requests , of exciting sensations for seeing and thinking. "

Jacques Rancière describes the artist's work in his text Die Arbeit des Bild , which appeared in the MenschenDinge exhibition catalog and later in the catalog for the exhibition at Jeu de Paume:

“Esther Shalev-Gerz does not make witnesses of the past or the distant speak, but researchers at their work in the here and now. It makes those who come from afar speak of both the present and the past, both the here and the there. It makes them talk about how they thought and established the relationship between one place and another, one time and another. But the dispositives that it constructs are themselves those that stretch their words, that subject them to the presentation of the conditions of their pronunciation and their listening. "

  • Monument against Fascism, Hamburg / Harburg, 1986. Esther Shalev-Gerz realized this permanent installation together with Jochen Gerz after they had won the relevant competition. They erected a lead-coated column in a city square and placed four pens and a tablet next to it, on which you can read in seven different languages ​​(French, English, German, Russian, Turkish, Arabic and Hebrew):

“We invite the citizens of Harburg and visitors to the city to add their names to our own here. It should oblige us to be and remain vigilant. The more signatures the twelve-meter-high lead rod bears, the more of it is embedded in the ground. Until it is completely sunk after an indefinite period of time and the site of the Harburg memorial against fascism is empty. Because nothing can stand up against injustice in our place in the long term. "

The column was sunk into the ground in seven stages between 1986 and 1993. The only thing that can still be seen today is a lead tablet on the floor as well as the tablet with the text and a few photos that document the individual stages of the disappearance.

  • Erase the Past, Berlin, 1991. During her stay in Berlin in 1990 shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Esther Shalev-Gerz received a portrait of Erich Honecker that was sold on the street. The work that is inspired by this takes two different forms: a slide series and an artist's publication based on a flip book. Two pictures showing the same living room each show a portrait of Erich Honecker and Bertolt Brecht. When turning the pages quickly, the two portraits keep their size, while at the same time the room is zoomed in (and all other dimensions change).
  • Irréparable (Irreparable), Musée de La Roche-Sur-Yon, 1996. In her first solo exhibition in France, Shalev-Gerz is showing this photo series as well as projections of 15 slide series (Juste un ciel / Nur ein Himmel, Hommage à Lucy Schwob and Mer de pierres / A sea of ​​stones).
  • Berlin Investigation, Berlin, 1998. This work, created in collaboration with Jochen Gerz, is an interpretation of the play The Investigation, written by Peter Weiss in 1965 . This is made up of statements made by victims, perpetrators, judges and witnesses during the Auschwitz sprout. In the artist's version, the conventional distinctions between witnesses and accused have been abolished. The play is not played here by actors, but by the audience. In each of the five performances in three Berlin theaters - the Hebbel Theater, the Berliner Ensemble and the Volksbühne on Rosa Luxemburg Platz - the hall was sold out. The participants designed the process: the actors, in their role as moderators, asked the audience to recite passages of the text individually, in groups, as a choir or all together. So everyone potentially became an actor. This disposition made a contemplative, passive attitude impossible. In a permanently brightly lit hall, this concept encouraged the production of an active memory.
  • Les portraits des histoires (The portraits of stories), 1998 to 2008. Esther Shalev-Gerz developed a series of videos and films for this project. In Aubervilliers in the north of Paris, in Belzunce, a district of Marseilles, in Skoghall in Sweden and in Sandwell in Great Britain , she asked the project participants the following question: “What story do we have to tell today?” Each of the more than 200 participants chose one narrative story as well as for the location where he / she would like to be filmed and in what position. Each installation was shown at its place of manufacture. All interviews could be viewed in an exhibition in Birmingham in 2008.
  • Inseparable Angels: The Imaginary House for Walter Benjamin, Weimar, 2000. This installation consists of a video showing the artist's taxi ride between Weimar and Buchenwald, as well as a series of photos and two objects: a double chair without backrests and a clock with two dials merging into one another, the pointers running in opposite directions.
  • White Out: between listening and telling, Stockholm, 2002. In the course of her research, Esther Shalev-Gerz discovered at the same time that there is no word for war in the language of the Lapps and that Sweden has not been involved in a war for 200 years. Two canvases facing each other show the same woman: Asa Simma, who grew up in Lapland in the far north of Sweden and now lives in Sweden. One film clip shows Asa Simma in her Stockholm apartment, where she talks about her experiences, the other in the landscape of her birthplace, while she listens to her own words recorded in Stockholm.
  • Does your picture concern me? 2002, Sprengel Museum, Hanover. In this work Shalev-Gerz brings together two women who were physically close to each other during the Second World War. One of the two, a German, lived in Hanover, 40 kilometers from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The other, a Polish woman, was interned there. In a series of photos and on four screens, you see both of them twice: while telling their own story and while listening to the other story. The two women only got to know each other at the opening of this exhibition.
  • First Generation, 2004, Sweden. For this permanent installation, Shalev-Gerz filmed the faces of 34 people who came to Sweden as first generation immigrants in extreme close-up while listening to their own answers to the following questions: What have you lost? What did you find? What did you receive? What did you give The film projected onto the outer facade remains silent, while the voices of the participants can be heard when entering the building.
  • Entre l'écoute et la parole: Derniers témoins, Auschwitz 1945–2005 (Between listening and speaking: Last witnesses, Auschwitz 1945–2005). On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, Shalev-Gerz realized this work for the Paris City Hall. In its large hall, the statements of 60 survivors were shown in full length on four long tables on 60 small DVD players. At the same time, a silent video triptych was projected onto a large screen. The same video was shown on each of the three canvases, with a 7-second time lag. This slow-motion film captures the silent moments of the statements that emerged between the question asked and the answer to it, between a memory and its linguistic expression.
  • A Thread, permanent installation, Castlemilk, north Glasgow. From 2003 to 2006, Esther Shalev-Gerz developed a project in an urban park, the participants of which belong to ten different interest groups represented there. Each group was invited to choose a location and a direction of view within the park. At this point, Shalev-Gerz set up a round bench with a protective tarpaulin, the motif of which was created in collaboration with the participants. Together, the benches make a tour of the park.
  • MenschenDinge, 2006, Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial. For this work, Shalev-Gerz asked five employees of the memorial to speak about their handling of objects found on the site that were made or changed by the inmates. An archaeologist, a historian, a restorer, the director of the memorial and a photographer tell the reconstructed or imagined stories of these objects in the five resulting videos, while 25 double photographs show them in the hands of the person who selected them.
  • Daedalus, 2006, Dublin. 24 photos of house facades are projected onto other buildings in the same quarter after the owners of the houses gave their consent, as well as the residents, who recorded one of the large projectors for the one-month duration of the project. This resulted in a series of photos in different formats.
  • The Place of Art, 2006, Sweden. "How would you define art?" and "Where is the place for art?" were the two questions Shalev-Gerz asked 38 artists from a suburb of Gothenburg. One video shows them in their home listening to their own answers; this film was projected in a shopping mall. Four other films were exhibited in the Gothenburg art gallery 7 kilometers away; they show 3-D animations that, based on the answers received, present the question of the location for art in the form of imagined spaces.
  • Echoes in Memory, 2007, Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. This work is inspired by the rumors and stories - including about a missing painting by Artemisia Gentelleschi, which was once seen as a ceiling painting in the great hall - that the staff of the museum told the artist. The work consists of 2 HD videos, 24 i 3D-created images and a soundtrack.
  • Sound Machine, 2008, Sweden. It is a project about the memory of five women who worked in the local weaving factory and were pregnant at the same time. Shalev-Gerz asked her and her now grown up daughters about their memory of the factory noise. The installation consists of 2 synchronized HD projections and 6 canvases printed with text.
  • Still film, 2009, Vilnius. A research by the artist about the house that her mother lived in when she was a child in Lithuania. The work consists of 11 photographs, a text and a video.
  • Open Book, 2009, Canada. This series of photos captures the moment when library staff present a selected book from the section that is not accessible to the public.
  • D'eux, 2010. It is a video encounter between two philosophers living in Paris: Rola Younes, a young Lebanese woman who is learning the languages ​​of the neighborhood (Hebrew, Yiddish, Persian etc.) in order to gain access to their history and Jacques Rancière, who reads a passage from a text he has written about his intellectual access to the workers through their correspondence. 2 HD projections, 12 photographs, 1 sound track.
  • The last click, 2010, Museum of Photography, Braunschweig. A series of photos that follow the movements of a camera in the premises of the Rollei factory before it is evacuated due to its closure. A video also shows owners of Rollei cameras reporting what they have experienced with them.

Scholarships and Awards

  • 1990 DAAD scholarship
  • 2002 IASPIS scholarship in Stockholm

Books, catalogs, monographs

  • Esther Shalev-Gerz, The Last Click, Bulletin no 17, Museum of Photography, Braunschweig, Germany, 2010
  • Esther Shalev-Gerz, Jeu de Paume and Fage Éditions, France, 2010
  • Still / Film, Vilnius Art Academy, Lithuania, 2009
  • The Place of Art, Art monitor, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, 2008
  • The Thread, Aje Aje, in collaboration with CCA, Glasgow, UK, 2008
  • MenschenDinge, Buchenwald Memorial, Germany, 2006
  • First Generation, Multicultural Center, Fitja, Sweden, 2006
  • The Berlin investigation by Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev-Gerz in Theater as Public Space, Christel Weiler, Playing in Auschwitz, in Theater der Zeit, Allemagne, 2005
  • Daedal (us), Fire Station Artists' Studios, Dublin, Ireland, 2005
  • Två installationer / Two Installations, History Museum, Stockholm, Sweden, 2002
  • Does your picture concern me ?, Sprengel-Museum, Hanover, Germany, 2002
  • Les Portraits des Histoires - Aubervilliers, Éditions ENSBA, France, 2000
  • Les Portraits des Histoires - Belsunce, Éditions Images en Manœuvres, Marseille, France, 2000
  • The Berlin investigation, Hebbel-Theater, Berlin, Germany, 1998 (with JG)
  • Raisons de sourire, Actes Sud, Arles, France, 1997 (with JG)
  • Irréparable, Musée de la Roche-sur-Yon, France, 1996
  • The 20th Century, Klartext Verlag, Essen, Germany, 1996 (with JG)
  • Memorial against Fascism, Cantz / Hatje Verlag Stuttgart, Germany, 1993 (with Jochen Gerz)
  • Erase the Past, DAAD, Berlin, Germany, 1991
  • COPAN, Gallery Giovanna Minelli, Paris, France, 1990

Works in public collections

  • Skissernas Museum Lund (Sweden)
  • Sprengel Museum Hannover (Germany)
  • Collection d'art contemporain de la Ville de Marseille (France)
  • Henry Martin Museum, Cahors (France)
  • Musée Municipale de La Roche-sur-Yon (France)
  • Buchenwald Memorial (Germany)
  • Cartier Foundation (France)
  • Maison Européenne de la Photographie Paris (France)
  • Collection de la Fondation Hippocrene Paris (France)
  • Fond Regional d'Art Contemporain de Bretagne (France)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography and bibliography in tabular form ( Memento from December 25, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  2. ↑ Katrin Bettina Müller: Esther Shalev-Gerz: Angels in the luggage , Der Tagesspiegel, February 23, 2001
  3. ^ Esther Shalev-Gerz: Sound Machine . Moderna Museet, Malmo
  4. ↑ Esther Shalev-Gerz. The last click . Exhibition in the Museum for Photography Braunschweig
personal data
SURNAME Shalev-Gerz, Esther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lithuanian-Israeli photographer, concept and video artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Vilnius , Lithuanian SSR