Angles Gallery says:

Angles Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new photographs by Ori Gersht, Places That Were Not. The exhibition will be on view May 22 – June 26, 2010, and a public reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, May 22nd, from 6 to 8 PM. The images in Places That Were Not depict hidden swamps and marshes on the boarder of Poland and Belarus, in what remains of the vast primeval forest that once covered most of Europe. These images portray uncharted locations that, historically, had been places of refuge during times of political conflict. Gersht was interested in photographing these areas that do not, or did not, exist on a map and that therefore may be referred to as "non-places" or voids. Photography relies on a physical reality that is present under the lens, and yet, Gersht's photographs capture not only the physical but also the metaphysical presence of a place. By attempting to expose the memory of historical events through the photographic lens, Gersht questions the relationship between the objective and the subjective nature of photography. The swamp images draw upon the recollections of those who were hiding in the swamps and forests during World War II. These accounts were documented by Primo Levi, in his book, If Not Now, When. The “Drape” images were photographed in the Sobibor forest, where the Sobibor death camp was once sited and was quickly replaced by trees. The Drape photographs were taken through net curtains, traditionally used by villagers to delineate public and private space. By placing these curtains in front of the lens, Gersht diminishes the depth of field, creating the illusion that lace and landscape are melting into one another, while simultaneously disguising and revealing the present forest and the memory of the past. The cumulative subjective history that has transpired in Gersht's landscapes leaves no physical trace, and so all that remains is a physical landscape. Ori Gersht compounds the events that have occurred in these "void" spaces, by conflating the events of the past with the reality of the physical present, into a single image. In doing so, Places That Were Not explores the dialectic between metaphysical and real places.