Lot 79: q - GILAD OPHIR B.1957

signed, dated 1997 and numbered 3/5 lower left

SHOOTING TARGETS (NECROPOLIS SERIES)

47 1/4 by 59in.<br><br>120 by 150cm

silver print

Born in Tel Aviv in 1957, Ophir studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York between 1981-1984 for his B.F.A. and then at Hunter College, New York between 1984-1986 for his M.F.A. In 1992 he was awarded the Gerard Levy Prize for a Young Photographer from the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

Since 1990 Ophir has participated in many one-person and group exhibitions including those at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art ; The Israel Museum in Jerusalem; Stadtische Galerie Delmenhorst, Germany; the Photography Biennial, Tokyo; The Jewish Museum, New York and the Jewish Museum, Vienna. His work is included in several important collections including the Tate Modern, London and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York.

In this work, an abandoned Jordanian army jeep, left over from the war, and has been used for target practice since, has been left to decay. In the Necropolis series, which Ophir collaborated on with Roy Kuper, the artists focused on deserted army camps which have become local archeological sites within a culture that invests heavily in training, defense and war. Abandoned structures become monuments that exploit the environment leaving in their wake decay and ruins. Their photographs map the geography of an Israel blighted by war, chronicling neither losses nor successes, but the eerie impact of Israel's wartime remnants on its landscape.

An impression from this edition is in the collection of the Tate Modern, London