Toward a Brief Manifesto on Photography
In order to formulate a binding stand with regard to the photographs in the exhibition, one must first acknowledge that the word “photography” today refers to a very broad spectrum of rather loosely connected practices. Any attempt to define photography as a differentiated, independent ontological category can no longer rely on the Barthean scheme of “that-has-been” or “that-has-been-there” with regard to the photograph; it must refer to photography itself as a “has-been-there” and also, perhaps, as “has-been.” Hence, all the works in the exhibition—as reflexive, dynamic, and universal as they may be— outline not only feasibility, a state of mind, or a cross section, but mainly the possibility of Israeli photography in relation to adjacent disciplines and in relation to itself.