Adi Nes creates photographs of poetic drama that merge everyday life with the ideal.  He draws on the visual language of Renaissance and Baroque painting, creating scenes that echo familiar icons from art history and also reflect modern concerns.  In spite of the contemporary events they enact, his images use the narratives and structures of myth, with its appeal to timeless and universal experience. 
Nes grew up Misrahi (an Israeli of Middle Eastern descent) in the development town of Kiryat Gat in the northern Negev desert.  Here he experienced firsthand the ethnic and class prejudices that inform his empathy for other marginalized groups.  His insight into the abstractions of country, honor, and land that are personalized in the military hero ingeniously connects national and personal identities.  Nes also introduces an erotic visual tension into his photographs, portraying bodies marked by the signs of youth and the fleeting possibilities they exemplify.  His images of adolescents and young men emphasize the idea that gender is constructed and can be articulated to both represent and initiate desire.
In his most recent body of work, Nes extends his visual exploration of masculinity, identity, and politics into the realm of fashion.  Asked to photograph for the magazine Vogue Hommes International, Nes fabricated a prison set for his shoot, drawing fashion into a self-critique of its coercive aesthetic.  Fashion and its tyranny serve as a visual symbol of our own acquiescence to cultural presuppositions in the larger social and political realm.  In all his photographs Nes reminds viewers of their own subjective positions, suspended between a passive acceptance of the depicted scene and an active engagement with its representational conventions.  
For financial support of the catalogue and collegial assistance with crucial elements of this exhibition, we are profoundly grateful for the special efforts of Professor Mordechai Omer and Nili Goren at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel; Toby Kamps at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California; the Consulate General of Israel, San Francisco; and Alvin H. Baum, Jr. 

Support in San Francisco is made possible by the Francis Goldsmith Exhibition Fund and a grant from The Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund.

1.	Untitled, 1995
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

By drawing on a visual tradition of Christian Pietאs and Depositions, Nes makes use of one of the most familiar images in Western culture.  Placing the military struggles in Israel within a context that relates religious belief and national identity, he explores the power such images have to provoke action in the name of ideology.  On closer inspection, however, the discernible makeup brush and cosmetic paints signal that the apparent wounds are fabricated.  Nes asks viewers to consider the nature of art and artifice in photography.  Through his staging of this most heightened scene of martyrdom, he leads viewers to question how images elicit our emotions and ask what makes them effective visual lenses for our beliefs.  

2	Untitled, 2000
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

In this photograph, Nes refers to Jacques-Louis David’s famous homage to a slain leader of the French Revolution, The Death of Marat (1793).  David had painted Marat as he lies murdered in his bath, his classically muscled arm falling to his side over the tub, his head back, and a strong Baroque-inspired light accenting his skin against an empty dark background.  Nes rehearses this compositional structure nearly verbatim, although his soldier lies sleeping rather than murdered.  A soft romantic light penetrates the darkness of the room, in contrast to the harsh, desert light seen through the doorway.  Nes emphasizes the physical beauty of the soldier, his vulnerability, and the distant landscape framed by the doorway that provides the political context for this scene.  

3.	Untitled, 1999
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

There are numerous parallels between Honorי Daumier’s Third Class Carriage (ca. 1862) and Nes’s photograph of soldiers sleeping on a bus.  Just as Daumier used the crowded proximity and tired visages of the strangers that made up his railroad passengers to critique the social conditions of his time, Nes portrays these soldiers crowded together and fatigued, as strangers except for their forced fraternity in combat.  While viewers are led to wonder exactly what has exhausted these soldiers, an ambiguous yet strong visual clue exists in the formal tension between two phallic symbols, the taut, muscular, yet vulnerable neck of the foreground soldier and the heavy, dark, rifle butt jutting aggressively in the opposite direction.  

4.	Untitled, 1999
Color photograph
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego
Collection of Contemporary Art, Museum Purchase, Joyce R. Strauss 

While the reference to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper (ca. 1495-1498) is undeniable, Nes’s photograph offers more than homage to a Renaissance master or simple postmodern appropriation.  In the carefully choreographed composition, he adds an additional disciple, isolated from the four groups of three that are borrowed from Leonardo’s painting.  There is an easy camaraderie among the other soldiers that is denied the standing figure at the left and the figure in Christ’s position, whose halo is formed by a background bush. Given the narrative of the Last Supper, it is likely that the key to this photograph lies in an understanding of betrayal.  However, as that story suggests, it is impossible to separate betrayal at the individual from the community or even national level.  On the surface, this photograph records in red and green the simple pleasures that are experienced through shared leisure and repose, but at a deeper level it offers a cross-cultural meditation on social and political disaffection.  

5.	Untitled, 2000
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

This photograph draws directly on the nineteenth-century, homoerotic images of Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden, whose male nude photographs of adolescent Sicilians on the resort island of Taormina depicted their newly developed bodies through voyeuristic displays.  As in those images, Nes relies on the conventions of antiquity.  The teenager to the right poses in the manner of the Dying Trumpeter (ca. 230–220 BCE), one of the most famous Greek statues representing the ideals of the classical body.  Nes creates a circuit of gazes––the viewer looks at the lounging figure in the photograph, who looks at his companion, who looks back, implicating the viewer in the scene.  In this way the photograph reminds us that the aesthetics of beauty have been closely aligned with the exoticized, youthful, athletic male body since antiquity.  

6.	Untitled, 2000
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

Nes here gives explicit expression to the violence that is often only implicit in the visual tensions of his other photographs.  The highly structured composition balances the struggling boys at the left with the architectural elements of the pipe and window to the right.  Although bright daylight is evident outside, this scene plays itself out in the shadowed space of a derelict building.  Graffiti on the background wall depicts a harbor scene with two fishermen and an overflowing barrel of fish, forming a crudely drawn mural that calls attention to the promise of labor and abundance at odds with the possibilities available to these development town youths.  The pictorial organization is reminiscent of Rembrandt’s The Blinding of Samson, 1636, which dramatizes Israel’s national troubles through the personal tragedy of a fallen hero.  Although the narrative specifics in this photograph may be different from Rembrandt’s painting, its tableau of struggle, sexual aggression, and lost innocence echo––at both the personal and national level––the account of desire and betrayal in the scriptural story. 

7.	Untitled, 2000
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

The young sleepers in this crowded room appear to be refugees, sharing a place of sanctuary in their common fate.  The light pouring through the window radiates from the center of the image and transforms the room into an apse and the middle bed into an altar.  The bodies––a tangle of arms, legs, and feet––at first appear to lie scattered haphazardly across the picture plane, but on closer inspection they form two strong, opposing diagonals.  Nes heightens the viewer’s participation in the scene’s voyeurism through these diagonals, which connect the sleeping faces of the adolescents.  He leads the spectator to feel the inherent contrast between the awakening sexuality of these youths and the unconscious realm where desire is formed.  

8.	Untitled, 2000
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

Narcissus staring at his own reflected beauty forms the narrative frame for Nes’s depiction of this moody adolescent.  As in that mythic story, this photograph captures the intensity of self-absorption inherent in the discovery of the self as an object of desire. While the image’s chiaroscuro lighting, with its strong contrasts and golden character derived from Baroque painting, establish a mysterious and moody tone consistent with myth, the derelict pool overgrown with weeds emphasizes the pedestrian nature of the scene.  Because Nes heightens the role of the gaze by the ambiguity of the reflection, which focuses on the figure’s body rather than his face, viewers are made aware of the role that their own gaze plays in the discovery of desire and the self.  

9.	Untitled, 2000
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

The transition from boyhood to adult is presented through a symbolic gesture of triumph as the young man raises the adolescent in a muscular, overhead press.  At the same time, the Pietא-like posture of the raised figure carries the darker suggestion of a lament for the dead.  This tension extends to the visual display of the male body itself.  The photograph could be referring to a heroic warrior from the Illiad lifting the body of his fallen comrade or Hercules using his powerful strength to lift Antaeus off the earth.  Nes places the proud well-defined torso of the young man, who stands in a manner similar to classic Greek contrapposto, in strong light at the front of the photograph.  His vertical strength is echoed by the architectural pillars and the shadows behind him, giving the scene a monumentality at odds with the actual setting.  It leads viewers to question which of the two bodies is on display and why.  

10.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

Nes’s signature subject, the well-muscled, handsome, figure with the heroic body that defines classic masculinity, stands in front of prison bars.  Behind him are a corridor and a bare cell with twin cots.  Viewers probably assume that the photograph has been taken inside this prisoner’s own cell.  However, nothing in the image confirms this hypothesis: is the subject standing inside or outside the bars behind him?  Are his hands behind his back due to handcuffs or is he merely posing in the swaggering stance of a fashion model?  Does the confrontational stance and direct gaze at the viewer within the context of a prison cell suggest a fashion statement, a criminal defiance, a political challenge, a fetishistic display, or an erotic invitation?  

11.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

Drawing on the conventions of portrait photography, Nes presents this mature man as a study in psychological complexity.  His blue eyes identify him as probably an Ashkenazi, a Jewish descendant of the Diaspora from Northern Europe.  And his age places his birth near the founding of the nation of Israel in 1948, making him a symbol of its troubled yet determined existence.  In his expression, viewers may sense the centuries-long history of repression, of which he is but the latest survivor.  Nevertheless, the overall impression is not of a victim, no matter how sad his countenance, but rather of quiet dignity, intelligence, and wisdom gained from suffering.  Even in prison, he represents the triumph of the human spirit and a people over adversity.  This type of national symbol contrasts vividly with the fetishized stereotypes of young Israeli soldiers that Nes’s other photographs examine.  

12.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

In this face-off between a mature officer in an Israeli police uniform and an Arab-appearing adolescent who is presumably a criminal suspect, Nes eliminates any overt explanation of the tension underlying their encounter.  As in a film still, the image points to a larger narrative, of which this is a decisive moment in their dual drama of desires and resolve.  Yet, the look embodied in the exchange between these protagonists is ambiguous.  The prison context suggests that they are engaged in a mutual standoff of determined bravura, heightened by their unusually close proximity.  The implicit organization of forced intimacy within the context of heightened masculinity also subverts traditional gender assignments through its sexual register of fetishism and domination.  This rhetorical slippage encourages viewers to question what crimes against the established order are on display: political crimes against the state, social crimes against normative sexuality, or cultural crimes against fashion?  

13.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

In this photograph, Nes confronts the stereotypes of viewers who presume that ethnic identity is easily visible.  Typically criminal suspects are placed in a lineup with others who appear similar but are assumed to be innocent.  However, Nes assembles five men who look very different as a way of demonstrating the range of heritage possibilities that comprise men of Middle Eastern descent.  The short depth-of-field guarantees that only one face will be in sharp focus.  In this way Nes enlists the vocabulary of the photographic medium to signify the shaping power of the spectator’s point of view and the inevitability of prior assumptions in any gaze that seeks an absolute mastery of visual evidence.  

14.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

Photographs in fashion magazines typically carry an implied but unspoken inflection under the guise of merely describing the clothes, poses, bearing, and attitude that are necessary to compel a desiring gaze.  By fabricating a prison setting for his fashion shoot, Nes ruptures this assumption, creating a metaphor for a closed society that confines everyone and locks them in an interdependent series of associations.  Running as a double-page spread, this image relegates the men and their dark parade of designer clothes to the right-hand page.  The entire left-hand page emphasizes the monumentality and blank surface of the prison wall, with its decorative pattern of barbed wire running across the top.  The apparently forced march, early morning light, and long shadows suggest an ominous narrative of surveillance and coercion, and yet Nes focuses on the radiant luminosity of the intricately weathered wall and the bright blue sky.  In place of the imprisoning desires on which the fashion industry relies, Nes locates aesthetics in the visual language of the photograph itself. 

15.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

Nes uses twins to address the principles of sameness and difference that support his investigation into the erotics of masculinity and the allure of fashion.  Handcuffed together and posed alike in the same outfits (Army style shirts by Kenzo and jeans by APC), they are a visual sign of the role that notions of the “other” play in the formation of identity.  The dramatic chiaroscuro highlights the similarity of their poses, hand placement, facial structures, and the open “v” of their shirts, which exposes the vulnerable flesh in the hollows of their necks.  As the twins confront the spectator with their direct gazes, their beauty and erotic appeal collapses difference into sameness, leading viewers to consider how narcissism constructs desire and drives fashion.  

16.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

A descendent of immigrants from Iran and Kurdistan, Nes is keenly aware of the multinational character of those living in the current state of Israel.  In this photograph, he makes reference to his Asian heritage as a sly reminder that his nation is a refuge for many peoples.  The trio, lined up against the slate blue wall in their bright red outfits by designer Paul Smith, offers viewers a bold study in color contrast.  Their stationary, frontal pose resembles the nineteenth-century ethnographic photographs of colorfully costumed foreigners by westerners, which supported racial and cultural stereotypes.  Along the top edge of the photograph, an intense white light from the barred windows pierces the prison chamber, reinforcing the sense of isolation and suggesting that the men stand far from the hope it symbolizes.  

17.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

This photograph of a man being subdued and handcuffed against a wire gate by two men in white shirts uses cinematic lighting effects to accentuate the features of the model’s face.  The nighttime setting, deep shadows, and use of purple light suggest bruises, reminding viewers that the model’s beauty is a fragile commodity.  The check wool trousers by designer Christophe Charon are barely discernable, disappearing into the darkness of the image.  The man’s stripped wool V-neck sweater by Vivienne Westwood is discernable only as a pattern as the model is caught in the intense beam of a searchlight.  Through this dramatic struggle, Nes transforms a fashion photograph into the visual language of surveillance with its associations of restraint, control, and mastery.  

18.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

The most subversive photograph in the Vogue magazine spread is this snarling, wild-eyed Doberman wearing a studded leather collar.  The single fashion accessory gleams diamond-like against the black ground of the guard dog and the dark night.  A tangle of barbed wire, lit with the strong bluish-purple lighting that appears in other prison images, is the only visual clue to the photograph’s setting.  Through the fetishistic associations of the studded collar, Nes makes explicit the affinities among fashion, sadomasochism, sexuality, and the spectator whose desires are set in motion by these images.  The guard dog acts as a symbol that summarizes the control and mastery of bodies and identities implicit in the fashion industry and the regimes of power it supports.  It suggests that in fashion, as in social identities and political agendas, the powerful demands of others function as a prison, seeking to constrain anyone who dares to envision a world outside compulsory expectations.  

19.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

In this photograph, forearms dressed in crisp, white shirtsleeves protrude incongruously through black prison bars.  The juxtaposition of a business shirt and a jail cell is startling and reminds viewers that appearances can be deceiving when it comes to identifying those who commit criminal acts.  The well-manicured hands, casual and relaxed, offer the only other clue to the prisoner’s identity by introducing the context of class into the photograph.  Floating in the middle of an image that is otherwise a study in black and white contrast, these hands extend in a gesture that could be patient or bored but suggest self-confident waiting rather than tense anxiety.  The photograph may be read as a visual question that asks us to consider which transgressions are most severely punished and which are excused because they reflect the tenets of the dominant social and political order.  In the less momentous realm of fashion commentary, they also point to the imprisoning dictates of standard business attire.  

20.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

In this tightly framed photograph of a man in handcuffs, black leather jacket, and snug-fitting blue jeans, Nes parodies with complex irony the masculine poses on which prison, fashion, and gay imagery all rely.  Seen in close-up from behind, the man’s torso is cropped, his handcuffs forcing him to assume an arched pose that renders his posture erect but his role passive.  The handcuffs formally divide the image, drawing attention to the symmetry of the belt loop and the stitching that outlines the division of the man’s buttocks.  This masquerade of straight, macho masculinity is mannered and stylized, reminiscent of clone culture in the gay community.  The crossing of penal and gay subcultures is fitting because prison life provides so many of the sexual fetishes that serve gay desire, especially those stereotypically associated with masculine power relations: uniforms, bodily display, voyeurism, physical restraint, sadomasochism, and an all-male community.  

21.	Untitled, 2003
Color photograph
Courtesy of the artist

On first glance, the man in this photograph appears to be engaged in the simple act of smoking.  His hands resting comfortably folded, the bright red package, the used ashtray, and the embers at the end of the nearly finished cigarette suggest a casual encounter.  The wristwatch introduces the notion of time and serves as a metaphor for its passage.  On closer inspection, however, the context changes radically when viewers realize that the metal encircling the man’s wrist is a handcuff rather than a bracelet.  The photograph shifts into an image of imprisonment with its associations of subjugation, interrogation, and hopelessness.  Additionally, the well-used table with its scratched, cheap laminate surface points to the temporary and synthetic nature of mass-produced consumer goods and their focus on surface appearance over substance.  The elegant cigarette lighter provides a visual foil to the more functional items, a fashion statement oddly out of place on this tabletop still life.