After the Last War (1970-1989)
Aviv Itzhaky
Exhibition Curators: Efrat Avni Mazhe and Inbar Dror Lax
Aviv Itzhaky (b. 1949) is a photographer born in Haifa. In the 1970s and 1980s he travelled between Haifa, Jerusalem, and Paris, experiencing the changes undergone by the Jewish community in Israel and in France in those years. During this period he created an impressive and comprehensive body of work depicting the urban environments in which he lived and the wealth of forms he found there. Itzhaky became acquainted with the life of the Jewish community in Paris and with Parisian culture following his marriage to a Jewish-French journalist. He deepened his acquaintance with the local scene after settling there and starting a family. Itzhaky worked as an independent photographer for a number of Jewish newspapers and institutions of the Jewish community, continuing his work as a photographer for newspapers and advertising firms in Israel.
Itzhaky's photographs reflect, sometimes covertly, his transitions between the countries in which he lived. They show his inclination to search and examine, to explore the shapes and lines, light and shade, volume and texture that reveal or conceal sensations of belonging or alienation, in an ongoing investigation of identities and human situations. All these may hint at the ideological and personal crisis Itzhaky underwent before leaving Israel. As in the case of other members of his generation, the 1973 Yom Kippur War caused a rupture in Itzhaky's personal life. Collectively, this rupture in Israeli society brought about political, social, and ideological shifts that changed the Israeli identity profoundly. Personally, the crisis led Itzhaky on a life journey, leaving Israel and immigrating to France while deepening his religious faith and moving from a secular to a religious lifestyle.
The interest in street photography and in social and urban scenes – themes that are at the center of the present exhibition – has its roots in a tradition of journalistic and street photography. The "Decisive Moment" photographers, active from the mid-twentieth century, such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, and others, emphasized the immediacy of the gaze and the incidental quality of the moment. They were influenced by the thought of Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin and their interest in the concept of "strolling" and the figure of the idle stroller, the urban "flâneur."
Itzhaky's photographs echo the experience of the urban flâneur, always on the move through the urban environment – exploring the labyrinth of streets and alleyways, following a stranger emerging from her home, glancing here and peering there, and turning all these glances into incidental observations of city life. Itzhaky "strolls" through the urban landscapes of Israel and France, his glance capturing the environment surrounding us and him. Through this type of pedestrian, incidental photography he shows us what we haven't seen, haven't noticed, or perhaps turned a blind eye to and wished to forget.
The exhibition present the historical camera collection courtesy of the Israel National Museum of Science, Technology, and Space, Haifa
