The
work of Adi Nes encircles one main issue - identity. Both in the first series
of photographs, The Soldiers series, as well as in the second, The Boys series,
the preoccupation with male identity and with the Israeli identity is
prominent. Thus, the artist enables us to sneak a glimpse into the private
world of someone living in the Israeli reality that is constantly examining its
identity.
The
first glance into the work of Adi Nes might fool you. This is not the case of
folklore photographs depicting the experience of soldiers or of dark skin boys
in a deprived neighborhood. Much energy is invested in the production and in
meticulous and precise staging of every detail in the scenes that are often
driven from the history of art or from famous photographs that are embedded in
the collective memory.
Adi
Nes’ choice of topics is not incidental; his work always depicts a masculine
world in a homoerotic-saturated atmosphere. In the smoke-engulfed soldiers’
camaraderie the ring of smoke turns into a wedding band but also insinuates
penetration in a sexual context.
Another
picture reconstructs the scene of raising a flag known also from the picture of
the American photographer Joe Rosenthal Old Glory Goes Up On Mount Suribachi in
Iwo Jima; similar scenes could be seen also in the wars of Israel. In the work
of Adi Nes’ the flag vanished. The soldiers seem to continue employing
themselves in a routine flag raising although the flag is gone. Cultural icons
are being reconstructed time and again.
The flag raising is erecting a male phallic structure while ridiculing
the impulse of the male, whenever he might be, for purposeless conquests.
The
Israeli reality of a constant war and attacks of terrorism appears in Nes’
photographs in the internal layer and not on the surface. The figures are
depicted in atmosphere of sadness and compassion. The nap of soldiers on the
bus is not innocent, and the heavy shading insinuates pending death (other
photographs of a sleeping soldier brings to mind Jacques-Luis David’s Marat
Assassinated). Death is obliquely implied in the picture entitled “With No Title”,
in which soldiers are eating, albeit one cannot escape the terrifying
association with Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper. The picture is laden with
significant details: the thorny bush the photographer has planted behind the
head of the soldier in the center; the red syrup in the jar instead of wine,
the torn bread bag, a half eaten apple and the holes in the wall implying on
shootings in the past and maybe those yet to come. One soldier in the picture
is superfluous; he looks like a passerby who has passed the place prior to the
decisive moment but his presence teaches also about the tragedy looming over
him and over his companions. That presence of that soldier contributes to the
composition of the reconstructing Leonardo’s Last Supper. He is directing his
glance beyond the photograph’s boundaries towards what was or, perhaps, what is
yet to come.
The
basis of The Boys series is Greek mythology tales, which Nes has processed into
contemporary Israeli reality. He has named one of the pictures in the series
“The Death of Adonis". “In my childhood I was injured by a motorcycle in
an accident", he tells, "at that moment, when I was laying on the
road I was not concerned with pain but with the possibility that tomorrow I
will be the talk of the small town in which we lived". Resembling the
classic story, the beautiful Adonis is laying down surrounded only by women
(contrasting identities) but
simultaneously the picture reminds also another famous American picture; John
Filo’s girl leaning over Student’s body during Kent State’ Demonstrations
Against the Vietnam War. Adi Nes’ men remain forever young; in the photographs
they depict the figures of Saints and heroes they could not portray in their
lives.
Different
worlds are integrated in Nes’ metaphors; the classic and the modern; the
foreign and the local; the personal and the public in a charged atmosphere that
presents men in the modern Israeli society trying to form their identity within
powerful emotions combining beauty and bereavement.
Ilan
Sheinfeld
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Ilan
Sheinfeld is an established Hebrew writer. He was the first man to publicly go
out of the closet in the early 80’s. He has published eight volumes of poetry,
two novels, three books for children and three plays. In 1997 he established
the first Israeli gay publishing house, “Shufra for Fine Literature”. Between
1990-1992 he was the spokesman of the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv. In 1992 he
opened his major Israeli public relations agency, “Ilan Sheinfeld public relations
and communications”. Between 2000-2002 he has established and managed the first
gay Israeli bookstore and coffee shop’ “Café Theo”, that was closed after a
sever attack of homophobia. Ilan Sheinfeld and Adi Nes lived together between
1992-2001.