Shai Kremer's transfixing large-scale color photographs explore the complexities of the historical, psychological, and political landscape of Israel. In his Infected Landscape series, Kremer examines contested territory throughout Israel where conflict has left an indelible imprint on both the land and the psyche of its inhabitants. Kremer challenges the viewer to consider the long-term effects of perpetual violence within a society, and warns against the vestiges of warfare becoming a permanent fixture in daily life. Kremer’s newest series, Fallen Empires, captures a landscape marked by historical conflict and empire building. His beautifully haunting landscapes capture poignant juxtapositions of creation and destruction, man-made and natural, timeless and ephemeral, ancient and contemporary. By visually highlighting Israel’s archaeological ruins as reminders of a historical past, Kremer questions how they are used today in discourse around the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.
Kremer was born in Israel and now divides his time between Tel Aviv and New York. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions worldwide, including Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Modern, London in 2010; Looking In, Looking Out: The Window in Art at the Israel Museum in 2010; Reality Check at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 2008, the 2007 Guangzhou Photo Biennale in Canton, China; Loaded Landscape at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL in 2007, Engagement-Contemporary Photography at the Israel Art Museum in Jerusalem in 2007, and Disengagement at the Contemporary Art Museum in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2006. His photographs are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Israel Art Museum, Jerusalem; and Contemporary Art Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel, among others. There are two monographs of Kremer’s work: Fallen Empires (2011) and Infected Landscape: Israel, Broken Promised Land (2008), both published by Dewi Lewis Publishing.
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