Page 2 - Lior Gal

On Lior Gal’s Ritualis c Coiled Photography

Lior Gal’s work rearranges our prior knowledge about the rela onship between land art and ac on-in-and-on the landscape. Predominantly, his work
stems from traversals - long walks in arid places, during which imprints in the landscape are being photographed and printed in black & white.
The
The printed photographic record is a ached to an addi onal one of another loca on to construct a layered percep on. Gal pastes the photographic
landscapes to create a hybridized appearance of welded moments, places, perspec ves and situa ons, disobedient to the reality principle of
photographic depic on. The collage-like appearance conveys a duality which carries the photographic mechanism to the realm of introspec ve
expression.

Gal
Gal challenges the s llness of the photographic mechanism and its quali es as a technique of displacing objects and sights, in order to expand his prac ce
towards sculptural proposi ons in space. By processing photographic prints as suspended, detached elements, Gal ignores the dis nc on between real
and imaginary, in the context of which photographic appearances are turned into material appari ons, becoming simultaneously ghostly and voluminous.
Furthermore, Gal’s photographic cri que involves coiling a thread around his welded collages. The thread gradually screens the image, incorpora ng a
visual impairmet that goes against the immediacy of the mechanized photographic recording.
visual impairmen
It undermines the totality of photographic imagery whilst reverbera ng the original traversal with its ranging visibility and slowed temporality.

Coiling the thread allows Gal to dislocate the travel experience into the domes c space without losing its magnitude. It brings to mind the Hindu ritual of
the Puja, in which a thread is being wrapped around a trunk of a tree to signify the connec on to nature. Coiling the threads not only recalls exis ng
religious rituals, it also amounts to a ritual of its own, a form of evoca on, which exploits the evoca ve power already imbued in Gal’s ini al traversals.

The
The use of analog photography in Gal’s work can be regarded as a response to the flux of digital imagery governing our day-to-day life and communica on.
In this sense, his work is part of an ar s c heritage recognized with ar sts from different genera ons like James Coleman and Shannon Ebner, who
embrace the ‘obsolete’ as a way to rela vize and weaken the global dominance of digital representa on. By gran ng his visual output a sense of
introspec ve expression Gal’s u liza on of analog photography contests the digital image in its own field, undermining the already undermined
dis nc on between real and fake associable with the la er.

Ory Dessau