Today we are excited to revisit the work of Yoav Friedländer. “My Grandfather Kurt fled Austria immediately to Israel after the Kristallnacht, was a British Brigades soldier during WWII and later served in the Israeli Army. After High School I’ve joined the Israeli army for a mandatory service as a paratrooper, and became the fourth generation of army soldiers. I grew up in the valleys of the Judean Desert between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. I am native to Israel but uprooted from my past. I’d got my B.A in photography from Hadassah College Jerusalem (2011), and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts.” His work has been included in several exhibitions including the Belfast Photo Festival and The International Photography Festival in Israel. Spend some time with his project titled ‘A Form of View’.
A Form of View
The works I produce are inspired by the exchange between an origin and its copy. A
mix of Scale models (photographs) and straight photographs, the body of works
accumulates to form a conjunction between the documented and the reconstructed.
Although different, both the photograph as a document, and the indexical scale model
visually represent, and claim to be self evident of an existing origin. In the process of
making photographs or scale models I am relying on preexisting images, as I am aware
that I cannot reverse the influence of those images on my vision. Thus I cannot reverse
my perception of the origin, constructed by the same preexisting images.
The miniatures are recreations of places I don’t have physical access to, personal
memories, collective consciousness, and images of places and spaces that I saw only,
or at first, photographs. I make them with the intent that they will echo the realism of the
original and bare the illusion of the photograph.
The landscapes on the other hand are all shot from the margins of the road, and from that
point as far as the eyes can see. Originally from Israel, I’m adapted to see the landscape
from the viewpoint of a car, always ready for quick escape. Surprisingly, in the U.S. I’m
bound to the same position only due to the privatization of the land. The images I make
form the illusion I’m roaming the land granted with a full access to it. A foreigner on the
paper and on the ground.
Reality is not observed through naive eyes. A world is experienced and perceived through
what we see, and how we understand it, and perception is the overlayer responsible for
contextualizing it. We have immersed ourselves with photographs, aspiring to create
a volume of copies equal in size to the origin they represent. Yet there is a tendency to
miss the changes these copies inspire in the origin they reflect.
Relying on photographs we find ourselves considering what is real to be different from
how it should be according to its own image. Clearly ever since the invention of the
photograph, reality has become augmented by its own image.
To view more of Yoav’s work, please visit his website!