The exhibition “The Map – Reading between the Lines” (28 Feb. 2018 – 15 Jun. 2018) presented the reciprocity between opinions of the homeland, the map of Israel and its founding fathers, as expressed in its representation in culture and art. Among the works in the exhibition was “Settlement”, a series of photographs by the artist Gaston Zvi Ickowicz’. This compilation of photographs is part of the Levin Collection of Israeli Art owned by the art collector and financial strategist Ofer Levin GTI.
Gaston Zvi Ickowicz’ was born in 1974 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1980 he immigrated to Israel. He studied at Musrara – the Naggar School of Art and Society and at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. The late photography curator of Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Nili Goren, commented regarding Ickowicz’ work: “Gaston Ickowicz’ photographs excel in attentive observation of the ‘place’. In their relating to the landscape, they conduct a unique dialogue with modern and contemporary photography. Ickowicz introvert and precise observation captures signs and remnants of occurrences on the way, and many times turns its view downwards, to the ground. Its focus on multi-layered surface exposes aesthetic, political and emotional complexity which forms into a typological expression of the place”.
As for the series “Settlement” Goren explained: “The atmosphere of alienation between the subject and the body is intensified and sharpened in the photo of the scattered constructions in the area […] as a matter of fact, these are portraits, whose construction and style are parallel to the physiognomy and to the human body language, and their integration is parallel to the relations between man and landscape […] Gaston has chosen to emphasize by the houses in his photos the loose connection and the untight sandy or rocky ground, and to expose many details around them which are testimonies of transience and conveyance”.