Adi Nes

Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2007

New York, Jack Shainman Gallery, Biblical Stories, 2007, another print exhibited
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Adi Nes: Biblical Stories, March 2007,  illustrated in color in the exhibition catalogue, p. 96, and on the cover, another print exhibited
Paris, Galerie Praz Delavallade, Biblical Stories, 2008, another print exhibited
Columbus, Ohio, Wexner Center for the Arts, Biblical Stories, 2008, another print exhibited
Dallas, Texas, Light & Sie Gallery, Biblical Stories, 2008, another print exhibited
San Francisco, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, Dateline 09, 2009, another print exhibited
Zagreb, Croatia, Glyptotheque Museum of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Adi Nes - Deposition, 2010, another print exhibited
Rome, The Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Deposition, 2010, another print exhibited
Florence, Museo Nazionale Alinari della Fotografia, Deposition, 2011, another print exhibited
Toronto, Koffler Gallery Off-Site at Olga Korper Gallery, Adi Nes, 2012, another print exhibited
Stockholm, Fotografiska - The Swedish Museum of Photography, Narratives,  2014 - 2015, no. 2, another print exhibited
Athens, APhF:15, Athens Photo Festival, Biblical Stories, 2015, another print exhibited
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Biblical Stories, 2015, another print exhibited

Not examined out of frame. C-type print is in overall good condition. An interior piece of the frame has fallen and is blocking a small portion of the upper right edge.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Biblical Stories is a series of 14 photographs, in which Nes re-imagines Biblical heroes as contemporary figures – the homeless and downtrodden. Nes shines a light on the hardships of contemporary Israel, through a retelling of the stories that have defined Jewish identity for centuries. In this series, women appear for the first time in Nes’ work. Previous series by the artist, Soldiers and Boys, were devoid of a female presence. 

The artist’s reflection on the tribulations of Israeli contemporary society are expanded in this work to tell the larger story of worldwide destitution through references to international historical and art-historical imagery. In the case of Hagar, the portrait plainly echoes the iconic image of the American Great Depression, Dorothea Lange’s photograph Migrant Mother. Hagar, posed like Lange’s Mother, looking into the distance, hand raised to a worried face, holds the burden of motherhood on her slouched shoulders. The biblical Hagar, cast out into the wilderness; Nes’ Hagar, cast out from society, begging in a dilapidated stairwell: both stories of despair and uncertainty.

In David and Jonathan, Nes has returned to a theme that is fundamental in his previous work, the homosexual relationship, here perhaps more tender and protective than in the images from Soldiers and Boys. “Rather than the heroism of David in his defeat of Goliath, Nes chose to represent David with Jonathan – the beautiful youths whose relationship has figured in art and literature as a homoerotic trope… The young man playing the red-haired David looks directly yet cautiously into the camera, while sheltering the younger boy, Jonathan, who leans into him for support. The pose alludes to the way in which David held his harp, so that he appears to be plucking or playing Jonathan, releasing a silent yet soothing music.” (Susan Chevlowe, Adi Nes’s Biblical Stories, 2007, p.122-123).