— GIL LAVI

This Saturday I will fly to Israel for the country’s 2nd Photo Festival taking place in the Tel Aviv Jaffa’s Port. My main goal is to participate and look at works by some very talented friends. My more humble goal is to bring peace to the middle east, but I’ll probably fail.

In Israel first Photo Festival I exhibited some of the portraiture work that I was regularly shooting a few blocks away in my studio that had wonderful view of the Mediterranean beach. I exhibited photographs around the narrative of power, individuality and personal history. Moshe Shai, one of Israel’s best photographers alive, curated the exhibit. The work Fight Club demonstrated the usage of brand names as a tool of self defense. Another piece, Psychological Warfare, examined how history can sneak into our modern life. The composition had dividing elements, each revealing clues from other times, not allowing the viewer to position the subject anywhere in history. The last piece was much more ironic. The image Red Revolution showing member of the Israeli Parliament Ilan Gileon during a photo shoot for the election campaign. In this image, though the campaign fantasy is broken into parts, weakness seems as power once again.

The best part though for me in Israel’s 1st Photo Festival was definitely the photo-op with Magnum’s photographer Micha Bar-Am.

For Israel’s 2nd Photo Festival, I selected completely different type  of work, photographs from the other side of the world. A few days ago I gave an interview for the Israeli media about a photo series of the Republican candidates that I shot earlier this year. Some of these photos are present in the body of work American Mirror.

American Mirror is a large series of photographs showing contemporary America, which is the fruit of work that’s been ongoing since 2008. Some of the images were shot on my first trip to the USA and many since I’ve resided in New York.

Mostly equipped with a 28mm lens, I took shots of contrasts across the nation. Soon after I shot the historical celebration of gay marriage outside of Stonewall  in New York, I took the picture of Rick Perry opening his hands for God in DC. In Cleveland, I captured a fairy trying to give a little boost to the stock exchange and in Florida a confederate flag in plain view of the interstate highway.