A COLLECTOR’S JOURNEY AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM

Ori Gersht (b. 1967)
Rear Window (VIII)
signed twice, titled and numbered 'ORI GERSHT REAR WINDOW (VIII) 2/5' (on the reverse)
C-print mounted on aluminium
48⅞ x 48⅞in. (124 x 124cm.)
Executed in 1999, this work is number two from an edition of five

Provenance:
Andrew Mummery Gallery, London.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2001.

*λ Please see our Conditions of Sale for definitions of cataloguing symbols.

Specialist Notes:

‘With photography, what interests me is that the camera is very good at showing the here and now and then turning it into a historical memory. If an event has already passed, then the camera is helpless. One of my interests is how you can go to a landscape and capture, bring to life, something that is already gone by the time the viewer sees it; it’s a seemingly impossible feat. I am interested in this tension and impossibility’ (O. Gersht, quoted in ‘Interview with Ori Gersht’ in museemagazine.com, 20 February 2014).

Gersht completed the series titled Rear Window (VIII) over a period of two years. Without any photographic filters, the artist used long exposures to reflect the changing colours and the dramatic character of the skies during twilight. The artist took all photographs from the window of his flat in south London, trying to capture the different effects of light and pollution in landscapes. Almost bordering on the abstract, Rear Window VII alludes to the romantic notions of dusk. From a palette of dark grays, the bright, pointing light of the sun below the horizon, emerges as the viewer’s only guide in the photograph. Resembling the effect of an aura, the luminous centre represented by the sun, slowly loses its glow until light and dark become united as one.

Please note this lot is the property of a consumer. See H1 of the Conditions of Sale.