ADI NES – SOLDIERS –
Adi Nes (born 1966, Kiryat Gat, Israel), is one of Israel’s most celebrated photographers.
A graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem (1992), his work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions in Israel and throughout the world, achieving the highest recognition and success.
Nes boasts a varied body of work, including five main series to date: Soldiers (1994-2000), Boys (2000), Prisoners (2003), Biblical Stories
(2004-2007) and The Village
(2007-2012).
A photographer of great renowned, Nes has won many prestigious awards, including Anglo-Israeli Photographic award (1993), the Education, Culture
& Sport Minister’s Prize for Artists in the Visual Arts (1999), the Gottesdiener Foundation Israeli Art Prize,
Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2000), and the Constantiner Prize for Photography (2003), Culture Minister’s Prize for Artists in the Visual Arts (2013).
Adi Nes_untitled (Last Supper) 1999
Nes’ photography is highly sought after, with many of his photographs purchased at international art auctions. In fact, much of his work is found in celebrated private and public collections across the world, highlighting the global appeal of Israel’s foremost photographer.
Nes’s large scale and multi-layered color photographs are executed with meticulous light and print qualities, drawing inspiration from his own life, the collective Israeli memory, and the history of art itself.
His work corresponds with famous pieces from the art canon, as well as being inspired by contemporary photography, mythology, film, media and journalism, fashion, and much more. Nes diverts these borrowed images towards new contexts, creating a new and critical look at contemporary reality.
Beyond his creative work, Nes also teaches, passing on his wisdom and knowledge to the next generation of artists and photographers. He has been a lecturer at the Bezalel Academy since 2002, while also providing lectures and courses in various art academies worldwide.
Adi Nes. Photography by Ziv Koren ©
Adi Nes is one of the most celebrated art photographers in Israel.
Over the course, his distinguished 20-year career, Nes has created a ground-breaking body of work that has inspired a generation of artists while presenting the multi-layered complexities of Israeli identity.
Since completing his studies in the Photography Department of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, in 1992, Nes’ work has appeared in countless group and solo exhibitions in his native Israel and throughout the world.
Nes’ images continue to reverberate across the art world and in wider cultural circles, as his admirers continue to grow on a global scale. It can be said that Adi Nes’ creations reveal iconic images which have been carved in the collective consciousness and have become part of the public canon.
STYLE
Adi Nes’ photographic style is staged, a genre which has blossomed in photography over the past 30 years. This genre has changed the stature of photography in the art world, positioning it as a leading medium in the contemporary art industry.
Nes’ creations have contributed significantly to this revolution in Israel, while developing a direct, personal and unique language in the use of this medium. In his work, Nes creates a constructed reality, artificial and staged, but it’s a fiction which indicates a greater truth.
His oversized color prints, photographed while scrupulously attending to issues of quality and lighting, frequently look as if created simply and effortlessly.
Yet behind each figure is a complete package of visual and textual references, along with complex direction which includes long months of research, choosing locations, casting, set-building, designing, lighting, preparatory shooting to develop and build the proper composition, applying make-up and staging.
Adi Nes. ©
Adi Nes©
Adi Nes ©
