Lot 149: q - ADI NES B. 1966

color photograph

executed in 1999, this work is number 1 from an edition of 5 in this size

39 3/8 by 59 7/8 in.<br><br>100 by 152 cm.

Tel Aviv, Dvir Gallery, Adi Nes: Photographs, 2000, no. 11, illustrated in color in the exhibition catalogue (illustration of a smaller copy)
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Recent Photographs, 2001 (another copy)
San Diego, Museum of Contemporary Art and Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Adi Nes Photographs, 2002 (another copy)
Paris, Hotel de Sully and Jerusalem, Israel Museum, Revelation - Representations of Christ in Photography, 2002-2003 (another copy )
Spain, MARCO, Museum de Arte Contemporaneo de Vigo and ARTIUM, Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporaneo, Agrupemenos Todos, 2003 (another copy)
Montreal, Photography Biennial, Le Mois de la Photo, 2003 (another copy)
San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Legions of Honor, Between Promise and Possibility: The Photographs of Adi Nes, 2004 (another copy)

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, ISRAEL

Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

Born in 1966, Adi Nes studied photography from 1989-1992 at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. From 1996-1997 he studied multimedia at the Sivan Computer School on Tel Aviv. His works appear in the collections of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Tel Aviv Museum of Art; The Jewish Museum, New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.

This work, considered his most important photograph, is from a series in which Adi Nes staged and digitally manipulated scenes of Israeli soldiers at work, in combat, at play and at rest. Questioning the very context of the macho role often equated with the Israeli soldier, Nes explores issues of gender, personal and national identity through a discourse with Greek and Roman mythology as well as art history masters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio. Nes also refers to historic Zionist photographs documenting the founding of the state of Israel.

Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper from 1498 is the compositional source for this photograph. "Set in an abandoned barracks, the arresting...image depicts fourteen soldiers gathered at a table set with orange cups and plates - the army's traditional dinnerware. Where the original fresco registers the upset of the moment in which Jesus announces that he will be betrayed, Nes' version illustrates no such tension. The disciples, including one extra that Nes says he added to get away from a direct quotation, are locked in private conversations while the central Jesus, his head haloed by a bush positioned behind him in the background, stares vacantly into space. Is this dazed Christ figure responding to the ongoing spiritual shellshock of life in the Middle East? The artist leaves interpretation open-ended, saying simply and sympathetically, 'I hope this isn't their last supper'". (Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago, Adi Nes Photographs, 2002).