Ori Gersht was born in Israel in 1967, but has lived in London for over 30 years. Throughout his career his work has been concerned with the relationships between history, memory and landscape. He often adopts a poetic, metaphorical approach to explore the difficulties of visually representing conflict and violent events or histories.
Gersht approaches this challenge not simply through his choice of imagery, but by pushing the technical limitations of photography, questioning its claim to truth. Frequently referencing art history, Gersht's imagery is uncannily beautiful; the viewer is visually seduced before being confronted with darker and more complex themes, presenting a compulsive tension between beauty and violence. This has included an exploration of his own family’s experiences during the Holocaust, a series of post-conflict landscapes in Bosnia and a celebrated trilogy of slow-motion films in which traditional still lives explode on screen.
Fallen trees. Verdant landscapes. Lofty mountains overlooking deep rolling valleys. The stunning natural beauty of the subjects of Israeli-born, London-based Ori Gersht’s photography leaves viewers breathless. But the natural splendor belies the significance of these locations as the sites of historical events we can no longer plainly see.
In Ori Gersht: Force of Natures—Film and Photography, the evolution of the artist’s basic process is explored in a series of powerfully expressive full-color photographs. Searching for traces of the past, Gersht translates the process of remembering into images. The majestic peaks of the Pyrenees, for instance, are revealed in the photographer’s thoughtful focus as the site of a desperate flight from Nazi-occupied France. Throughout his works, Gersht unfolds a complex metaphor for the impenetrable relationship between the past and present, death and life.
Gersht’s works have been the subject of major solo exhibitions in the United States, at places such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Columbus Museum of Art; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; as well as many internationally acclaimed museums. Collecting Gersht’s works from 1999 to the present, this book reveals the artist’s remarkable career.
History Repeating is the first comprehensive survey of the Israeli-born photographer and video artist Ori Gersht (born 1967). This richly illustrated book presents the best of Gersht's achingly beautiful images, and explores how he intertwines spectacles of painterly and narrative imagery with personal and collective memory, metaphysical journeys, contextualized spaces and the history of art and photography.
Be it in the scars left on the sunlit yet war-torn buildings in Sarajevo, the white noise of his train journey to Auschwitz, or the clearing of trees in a forest that once stood witness to mass murder in Ukraine, Gersht's vision bridges a history that is full of violent horror and a world of emergent, transcendent beauty. From the radiant optical glow of pollution in the atmosphere to his freeze-frame shots of shattering floral arrangements frozen by liquid nitrogen, Gersht's calm is one that comes after the storm.
In his 2010 series of Japanese landscapes, the ghostly visual static of cherry-blossom petals echo the militarism and sacrificed youth of World War II and the more recent nuclear fallout of Fukushima, but in their own extreme transience, they also manage to embody the possibility of spiritual renewal. History Repeating demonstrates the thin line between beauty and brutality and the sublime draftsmanship behind history's various traumatic scars. History repeats itself: first as tragedy, then as unexpected beauty.
Photography has long played a crucial role in the art market, bridging fine art and contemporary culture while attracting a diverse range of collectors. With digital platforms reshaping how art is discovered, collected, and valued, Artsy has emerged as a key player in making photography more accessible.
In this exclusive interview, Casey Lesser, Artsy's Director of Content and Editorial, shares insights into the current photography market, emerging trends, and how digital tools are shaping the way collectors engage with the medium. From the growing demand for portraiture to the impact of price transparency, Lesser offers a behind-the-scenes look at the evolving landscape of photography collecting.
Currently on view at the Norton Museum of Art, certain silence marks artist Fabiola Menchelli’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States. Running through March 23, 2025, the show offers an immersive exploration of photography’s materiality, challenging conventional notions of perception and image-making.
Comprising more than 20 works—including previously unseen pieces—Menchelli’s ethereal compositions unfold through a meticulous process of folding, exposing, and developing light-sensitive materials. Created without a camera or negatives, her works blur the boundaries between control and chance, revealing intricate layers of abstraction and poetry. Through this interplay of light and form, certain silence invites viewers into a meditative space where perception itself becomes the subject of inquiry.
Art, Activism, Policy, and Power is an educational framework offering resources and opportunities for high school students to engage with artist-activists. The program focuses on various justice topics, utilizing the MoCP’s exhibitions, visiting artists, and collections as teaching tools. Students explore how artists incorporate research into their work to amplify urgent social issues, while also gaining insight into the power of the arts in advancing activism.
Jaume Llorens, born in Porqueres, near Girona, has been passionate about photography since his teenage years. Though he began exhibiting his work later in life, his artistic journey has quickly gained recognition on the international stage. His work is characterized by a deep, contemplative connection with nature, where silence and observation shape his artistic vision.
His poetic project Gaia, inspired by this reflective approach, earned him the December 2023 Solo Exhibition.
We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Asiya Al Sharabi is a Yemeni-American visual artist whose work has been recognized both nationally and internationally. She began her career as a journalist and photographer before shifting her focus to artistic photography, using her lens to explore the complexities of identity, culture, and migration. Now based in the U.S., her work is deeply rooted in the experiences of Middle Eastern women, young adults, and immigrants—themes that continue to shape her creative vision.
Círculo Collective is a photography group dedicated to fostering unity and shared humanity during these challenging times. This exclusive collective brings together photographers from five countries: India, Tanzania, Iran, Brazil, and Poland.
In a world increasingly defined by division and conflict, the mission of Círculo Collective holds profound significance. Through their work, they seek to remind us of the connections that bind us and the power of community in overcoming adversity.
We reached out to them with a few questions to gain deeper insights into their project.
Manuela Federl is a journalist and documentary filmmaker with over 15 years of experience. She studied languages, economics, and cultural studies, focusing on the Mapuche people in Chile, which became the subject of her published thesis. In 2016, she founded her company, bergjournalisten, and has since created award-winning documentaries like 100 Hours of Lesbos and THE GAME. Gambling Between Life and Death. For the past two years, she has traveled extensively, documenting social issues through photography and storytelling. Her series The Roma Princesses earned her the January 2024 Solo Exhibition.
Black Box, a memoir by award-winning American photographer Dona Ann McAdams, combines fifty years of black and white photography with the photographer’s own short lyric texts she calls “ditties.” The book brings together McAdams’ striking historical images with personal reflections that read like prose-poems. Her photographs, taken between 1974 and 2024, document astonishing moments and people across decades of American life.
Grace Weston’s staged photography transforms miniature vignettes into powerful narratives that explore psychological themes with a playful yet profound touch. Her meticulously crafted scenes invite viewers to delve into stories of power, identity, and human complexity. Weston’s innovative work has earned international recognition, including winning the November 2023 Solo Exhibition. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
