Adi Nes Artist's Talk

Photographer Adi Nes, one of the best-known artists currently working in Israel, discusses his Biblical Stories series, now on view at the Wexner Center, and other recent works.

Nes’s photographs often focus on identity, particularly on what it means to be a citizen of Israel and, in several series, on how masculinity is defined within that context. He produces these images almost as though he were making a film: he casts nonactors as his characters, scouts locations, determines costume and production design, and then photographs the resulting fully staged tableaux. In the Biblical Stories (2003–06), he transports figures from the Old Testament to contemporary Tel Aviv and places them in scenes depicting poverty and want, drawing on recognizable visual sources as wide-ranging as Caravaggio’s paintings and Dorothea Lange’s photographs. The artist was born and raised in Kiryat Gat, Israel, to Jewish parents of Kurdish and Iranian descent. He now lives and works in Tel Aviv.

Cosponsored by Ohio State’s Melton Center for Jewish Studies.

image credit:
ADI NES
Untitled (Abel), 2006
C-print
40” x 40”
Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery