Israel: 60 Years

©Robert Capa/ Magnum Photos
May 14th,1948, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion reads the proclamation of independence.

The history of modern Israel is the latest chapter in what Abba Eban once called “the miracle and mystery of Jewish history – self preservation, resonance, suffering and renewal.” The upcoming Sixtieth Anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel offers at once a cause for celebration, and a pause for reflection. art2art is honored to announce the exhibition Israel: 60 Years , featuring sixty memorable photographs in both black-and-white and color by members of the acclaimed Magnum Photo Agency.

Magnum was launched as a photographer's cooperative in the aftermath of WW-II, only a few months prior to the birth of the State of Israel in 1948. Israel : 60 Years includes photographs by three of Magnum's founding fathers, Robert Capa , David “Chim” Seymour , and George Rodger . Capa and Seymour were themselves Jewish émigrés from central Europe who shared enormous enthusiasm for the struggle of the new arrivals and covered their story with deep affection. Indeed, Capa's book Report on Israel (1950) remains the essential photographic record of the tumultuous first two years of the Zionist state.

In contrast, George Rodger focused on the Palestinian exiles on Israel 's borders, throwing light on the human price of the Jewish victory – a story that continues to the present day.

Israel's struggles and triumphs, its tears and laughter, on both a national-political and on a personal scale, have been recorded in each subsequent decade by leading lights in Magnum's international roster of photojournalists whose work is included in this exhibition. Among them are the Israeli Micha Bar-Am , who worked on a Kibbutz near Haifa before first picking up a camera to cover the 1956 Sinai War; Burt Glinn , the first American member of Magnum, and later twice its president; the Frenchman Patrick Zachmann , who is particularly concerned with issues of immigration and cultural fragmentation, and who from 1979-86 embarked on a personal photographic inquiry into his own Jewish identity; the Canadian Larry Towell , a social activist with a camera whose photo-essays have ranged from the “Disappeared” of Guatemala, to the Mennonite migrant workers of Mexico, to the Exxon Valdez eco-disaster; and the post-Modern globe-hopping Englishman Martin Parr , whose wry exploration of social foibles has helped push the boundaries of contemporary color photography. Through their eyes, as well as that of their Magnum colleagues such as Elliott Erwitt , Susan Meiselas and Marc Riboud , the myriad facets of Israeli life are illuminated, and celebrated.

Number of photographs: 60
Frame sizes : 16 x 20 and 20 x 24 inches
Linear feet: approximately 200
Rental fee: $7800 for 12 weeks


EXHIBITION SCHEDULE

April 15, 2008- July 6, 2008
The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage
http://www.maltzjewishmuseum.org/

July -December 2008
Utah Jewish Federation, SLC

ADDITIONAL IMAGES FROM THE SHOW

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