Ilit Azoulay
A 7th Option
November 5–December 19, 2015
Opening: Thursday, November 5, 6–8pm
Andrea Meislin Gallery
534 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
T +212 627 2552
www.andreameislin.com
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Andrea Meislin Gallery is pleased to announce A 7th Option, Ilit Azoulay’s third solo exhibition at the gallery. This exhibition will be presented concurrently with the artist’s inclusion in Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015 at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, November 7–March 20.
Two related pieces will be shown simultaneously at MoMA and at Andrea Meislin Gallery. These works are the result of the artist’s 2013 residency at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin (KW), during which the artist embarked on an extensive process of historical and archival research of buildings across Germany, collecting and photographing objects and architectural fragments from the various sites she visited.
At MoMA, Shifting Degrees of Certainty is an installation of 85 custom-framed photographs arranged in a puzzle-like constellation spanning 30 feet. Each piece is accompanied by an audio-based component telling a story related to its history, both real and imaginary. This expansive installation, recently acquired by MoMA, functions as a visual inventory of the artist’s research.
It is from this “inventory” that Azoulay constructed four new panoramas—which she refers to as “options”—including A 7th Option. In this 36-foot panoramic photograph, presented at Andrea Meislin Gallery, the artist re-contextualizes, resizes and collages various elements referenced in Shifting Degrees of Certainty, creating a space for contemplation of the real and of representation within a theatrical presentation in the gallery.
This language of documentation draws awareness to the ways in which history is structured, determined, organized, and perhaps manipulated. Believing that architecture holds the histories of a place, Azoulay combines insignificant objects and forgotten fragments of architecture encountered in everyday experiences, exploring ideas of destruction and conservation and new possibilities for visual and historical narratives. In the choice of digital photography as her artistic medium, the artist is additionally commenting on the mechanisms of photography and exhibit-making to alter our experiences.
On the occasion of her exhibition at Andrea Meislin Gallery, Azoulay will release a small publication produced by the curator Jonathan Touitou, highlighting a selection of fragments and objects from Shifting Degrees of Certainty with their related stories from the audio recordings, as well the curator’s newly imagined story from his experience of the work.
Ilit Azoulay (b.1972) lives and works in Tel Aviv. She is a recipient of the Gerard Levy Prize for a Young Photographer, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and of the Constantiner Photography Award for an Israeli Artist, Tel Aviv Museum. In 2014, she presented one-person exhibitions at the Kunst-Werke, Berlin and the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, and was nominated for the Prix Decouverte–Les Rencontres d’Arles. Azoulay’s works can be found in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, The Israel Museum, the Herzliya Museum, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Shpilman Institute for Photography, and many other notable private collections.
Curator: Jonathan Touitou
For more information, images or media enquiries contact: info [at] andreameislin.com or T +1 212 627 2552
