Levac’s belief is that as long as there are human beings, their stories need telling — even if the photographer has an agenda.
Alex Levac’s photographic show Our Country has irony and wit, says David de Souza
Images from Israel are generally bad news, bombings this or that side of Gaza, a few hundred people dying, crying or protesting, so an exhibition called My Country by an Israeli photographer might conjure up the usual and by now predictable visuals.
Alex Levac’s show at the Piramal Gallery, however, comes as a pleasant surprise (never mind the crumpled gallery attendant who is napping on the desk). The black and whites deal with irony and wit, documentarian-style. Is the documentary as a form dead?
Levac’s belief that as long as there are human beings, their stories need telling — even if the photographer has an agenda — is reason for the show. The photographer is looking for duality, and more often than not, finds it.
As you enter, there is a startling image of a welder obstetrician repairing a giant provocative statue; it looks like he will deliver. A soldier in camouflage fatigues has his hands full with an automatic rifle; right next to him is a beach bum whose hands are full with his girlfriend’s semi-naked bum.
Traditional beard, hats and ringlet-wearing Hasidic Jews are relaying the afternoon prayer via their cell phones. A bridal couple is getting initiated with a how-to sand sculpture of a nude couple in the throes. A sun bathing elderly couple with goggles on are appointed to sainthood with caps that look like haloes, covering nothing but their humanity. A huge Batman and Rabin (sic) pee in upright urinals, remarkably like humans do. You get the clue so that you begin looking forward to the next image and the one after that.
In that sense the show works, you are left feeling light-hearted and marvelling at how the photographer gets into a situation and sees what he does so repeatedly, and how life sets itself up with such comic juxtaposition.
You also identify with people of a different culture and use the images as touchstones of your own reality, you look into the frame and the subjects look out and there is no need for a passport.
Technically the images and prints are very poor, some of the digitisation is crude, but the content and heart makes up for it with chutzpah.
Our Country, Alex Levac, Piramal Gallery, NCPA, last day on Saturday.
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