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Elger Esser
from Shivta to Lifta
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The project from Shivta to Lifta is the result of a collaboration between German artist Elger Esser and Loushy Art & Projects. Esser combined three bodies of work to create a single, stratified whole presented as a solo exhibition. The project began with a year of research, during which visual and theoretical materials pertaining to the historical and cultural aspects of the local landscape were gathered. In November 2015, during a month-long sojourn in Israel, Esser wandered through local landscapes following an inner logic he set for himself. The field work was performed via pensive meandering among sites. Esser's freed presence in the process may be likened to a child assessing options of play in a new playground.
from Shivta to Lifta surrenders an illusion ostensibly originating in a general view of a large scenic terrain, but in fact evolves as an acute cross-section into the depths of the local reality. Work on the project was conducted along several concurrent levels, using various tactics of observation and photography.
The body of landscape works reflects Esser's appreciation of the beauty he encountered, and his decision to expose that beauty so as to "draw" evidence of life that took place in the landscape as well as a yearning for a life that has not yet transpired in it. The na?ve presentation of the "geographic reality" is disconcerting as it exposes dark scraps that survived in it, overlooked by the civilized eye. In Shivta and Montfort, Esser employs long-exposure photography. The long duration of nocturnal photography was required to capture details that were muted and silenced in the landscape years ago, whose movement from the scenery's depth to the surface is prolonged. Esser ascribes meaning to open waterscapes in his field of action. The water works in the project are imprinted with unsettling sensations. The cleanliness and serenity of the Acre beaches are imbued with historical markers; the Sea of Galilee (See Genezareth) in the photograph is abstracted of nuances as if it was a watercolor, to become a misty arena before a storm which Esser presents as either an enigma or a spiritual essence; and in Jisr az-Zarqa he reinforces the sense that even the infinite tranquility of the water fails to wash everything away and erase the traces.
The body of work One Sky spans four pieces. Each is an object comprising two photographs installed back to back, shot at the same time, looking at the same spot in the sky—Esser photographed from northern Israel, while his assistant photographed from southern Lebanon. Esser thus introduces a broad perspective which brings the shared reality into sharper focus—a reality reflected even when the photographic act takes place on either side of the border.
The third body of work is the archive, in which Esser combines a unique technique for photographing historical sites with archives of data, toying with their interrelations. In the works, he reformulates questions about the relations between observation and reality: does one require signed documents, ownership deeds, and dated signatures to discern the truth as suggested by authentic photography? Esser takes a stand not on the political reality, but on the politics of the gaze.
Meir Loushy, November 2016
Esser's project and exhibition is part of Loushy Art & Projects' ongoing activity, comprising collaboration and dialogue with artists that lead to the creation of a cluster of works underlain by a common structure or concept unique in the artist's oeuvre (participants have included Michael Druks, Gilad Efrat, Max Frisinger, Olaf Holzapfel, Volker Hueller, Pavel Peppersrein, Michael Sailstorfer, Yehudit Sasportas, Nahum Tevet, and others).
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