Yesh Matsav opened at the Basis for Art and Culture gallery in Herzliya Pituach last Friday.
By BARRY DAVISAlex Levac's exhibition includes contemporary full-color snaps from desert expanses used as IDF training zones.(photo credit: ALEX LEVAC)
As exhibition monikers go, Yesh Matsav has got to be one of the more incisive, concise and self-explanatory. Literally, yesh matsav means “there is a situation.” In contemporary Hebrew parlance it also translates as something along the lines of “probably,” “in all likelihood” or simply “yes.”The original one-on-one translation is pertinent in a photographic milieu. After all, isn’t that what the photographer does? He or she documents “the situation,” naturally with their own personal creative slant.All of which leads straight to Alex Levac’s new offering, Yesh Matsav, which opened at the Basis for Art and Culture gallery in Herzliya Pituach last Friday.Now a sprightly 76, Levac has been at the top of his inquiring, succinct, comedic photography game for over four decades. Recipient of the 2005 Israel Prize for Photography he has been merrily clicking away in practically every nook and cranny across this country, capturing oddball, thought-provoking, emotive or downright ludicrous juxtapositions out on the streets of our urban centers, on the beach, in military arenas, in Gaza, Mea She’arim and at – the currently mostly underemployed – Ben Gurion AirportThe current exhibition takes in monochromic prints of shots taken in the 1980s and contemporary full-color snaps from some of our desert expanses used as IDF training zones. The dozen frames cover a wide spectrum of aesthetics, human and political sensibilities, and a mood range that arcs from the melancholic to tongue-in-cheek.And Levac doesn’t mind pushing the boat out, either. When attending a Likud Party political convention back in the 1980s, Levac caught Binyamin Netanyahu – then just an aspiring youngish politician – in an embarrassing pose. Bibi was, presumably, trying to drive home some point or other and, in so doing, extended his right arm in what looks unmistakably like a fascist salute reminiscent of the darkest period in the history of the Jewish people.“I took the picture and it ran in [new defunct newspaper] Hadashot. They gave it half a page,” Levac recalls.Naturally, the photo stirred up some deep-felt emotions.“I have a friend who was the photographer for Newsweek for many years, [now 84-year-old] Shlomo Arad. He said that was a tough picture to publicize and that I should really call Bibi to apologize.”Easier said than done, one might think. But this was long before the leader barricaded himself away from the people in his plush ivory tower. Back then he was still approachable, on a personal and practical level.“I got through to him in two minutes,” says Levac. “Sounds crazy doesn’t it? I told him I wanted to apologize for the photo and he said he accepted my apology, and that all was well.” Hard to imagine Netanyahu being so magnanimous these days.“That’s the power of photography,” Levac notes. “You see an image like that and it straightaway transports you to another era. I wouldn’t say there is a Holocaust element to it, but there is definitely something that conjures up an association with fascism. There is something very powerful about the picture. A lot of people reacted to it.”LEVAC’S WORK generally elicits responses. He can get you to stop mid-step to ponder some kind of subtext that, surely, lurks beneath the surface narrative. And he can get to smile, or even laugh out loud, at some hardly believable commixture between street level characters and their prosaic surroundings.Rather than bring his craft to its credibility knees, Levac feels the constant avalanche of online imagery, including the doctored stuff, has only served to make people more appreciative of what he puts out there.“Today we are exposed to so much fake news, but I think this picture [of Netanyahu] does stir something.”It certainly does.Much of Levac’s work is clearly designed to raise a smile, even though that may sometimes be of the wry variety. A 1988 black-and-white print of couple of witless-looking young men camped on a couple of plastic beach chairs shamelessly ogling four bikini-clad girls is something of an odorous non-PC blast from the past. But, when you see the delightful shot of an IDF soldier patrolling in 1980s Bethlehem, rifle at the ready but with a broom strapped to his back, you can’t but chortle.“That was during the First Intifada,” Levac explains. “I spoke to him and he told me that, as he hadn’t cleaned up the army tent, his commander had ordered him to carry a broom around with him all day.”The locals found the punishment particularly risible.“Some Arab kids asked me: ‘Hey! Is that your secret weapon?’” Levac laughs. “You need to have a degree of humor in what you do, a little irony or a bit of surrealism. Otherwise it can sometimes be a bit challenging to take the message on board.”Levac’s photographs have never been anything other than entertaining, informative and communicative.For more information: *3184 and www.basis.org.il
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