MOCA GA / Calendar

Curated by Lisa Kurzner and featuring work by Ori Gersht, Pam Pecchio and Jeff Whetstone.

Forest Primeval consisted of photographic work by three artists and a new film, Forest, by Israeli photographer Ori Gersht, which was screened during the exhibition run. Together the artists presented a new attitude about a familiar photographic subject, one that diverges from much landscape photography in many ways.

The forest has been photographed since the birth of the medium and the development of the Barbizon school of painting in mid-19th century France. While these photographers are conscious of photographic history, they also have a keen awareness of contemporary art and their own place in a new emphasis on narrative. Photography’s story-telling quality suddenly takes center stage in a timeless way. The forest becomes a place of ancient time, not a topical plea for environmental preservation. Each focussed upon a particular aspect of the forest that takes the subject out of contemporary time, making the familiar seem foreign without significant distortion or manipulation. Like the best photographers, each made pictures about what they know, the elegaic everyday, with the forest as metalphorical subject rather than as background.

View Catalogue/Database Exhibition Record

Artists Included: