Alex Levac: black box

The first comprehensive museum solo exhibition devoted to Alex Levac, one of Israel’s most prominent and influential photographers. Just as the camera is an inseparable part of Alex Levac’s body, his photographs are inseparable from the local culture. Levac (b. 1944, Tel Aviv) has become synonymous with a virtuoso gift for recognizing the absurd essence in an everyday moment and for capturing what simmers beneath the surface. His photographic language moves along the axis between humor and dread; often, a single object, figure, animal, or text caught in the frame is enough to unsettle reality as we know it. This interplay of contrasts runs through each individual photograph and through the encounters between them; it is bound up with Levac’s own persona: on one hand, an active, politically engaged photojournalist who uses the camera to bring the repressed into view; on the other, a street photographer who works like a visual anthropologist, clean of preconceptions, enticing the viewer with wit and humanity. This retrospective exhibition, the first of its scope and kind, seeks to establish Levac’s standing as an artist-photographer within the museum, unfolding as a journey through time. It begins with his travels to South America, followed by his photography studies in London and his years in England. It continues through the Bus 300 affair, a journalistic career in a reality of violent conflict, and finally, the art of street photography – a practice that remains part of his daily routine to this day. The power of the photographs lies both in each image and in their cumulative value: with time, the past they depict takes on renewed clarity and relevance in the present moment. Presenting them together in the present moment creates a “black box” offering a chronicle of a place; a look into the past that sends its signals into the future. The photographs in the exhibition were selected from the tens of thousands in Levac’s archive. Most are analog silver prints he developed in the darkroom, alongside black- and-white and color photographs printed specifically for this exhibition. Tania Coen-Uzzielli, Director of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art:“The exhibition Black Box confronts us with an unfolding story, one that is still being written and of which we are a part. Presented at this moment of political polarization, social fracture, and the erosion of values, it takes on a new sense of urgency. It is not merely historical testimony, but also a warning sign at a time of momentous decisions that will shape the future.”