Moments Re-captured

The Israeli photographer Orly Zailer recreates photographs from family albums by photographing descendants of family members with as much precision as possible. She reconstructs decades-old photographs by photographing daughters, sons, grandchildren or great-grandchildren, who for a brief moment slip into the role of their forebears, thereby producing images of alleged doppelgängers who possess an almost magical charisma.

We are all familiar with the question of family resemblance: so often, children are informed of a striking facial resemblance with their uncle when he was their age, or with family members on their mother’s rather than their father’s side, or are told have their aunt’s eyes, or hands…or, surprisingly, that they do not resemble anyone in the family at all. Orly Zailer’s photographs seize upon things which in daily life cause us only fleeting concern, minor irritations which we do not pursue any further: the somewhat amused remark of a friend, an encounter with a relative at a family gathering, the feeling of surprise upon glancing at a photo album…

The vague suddenly becomes the obvious. Suspicions become revelations, on the basis of compelling evidence of the type which only photography can provide. This series of works by Orly Zailer opens up a complex discourse concerning identity and memory, using the viewer’s surprise upon seeing the pairs of photos to ask questions that naturally arise about nature and culture, and the individual and society.

© Orly Zailer

New Portraits in Tyrol and Vorarlberg

Orly Zailer began the series of works in 2012, with photographs from her own family album and images of friends and neighbours. The works have been exhibited in London, but until now not in continental Europe. For INN SITU, we invited her to continue the project on this occasion outside Israel for the first time, in preparation for a full-scale exhibition at BTV Stadtforum.

For the project, following an open call for participants in Tyrol and Vorarlberg, numerous families began taking an interest. Zailer selected suitable album photos from among those received, and arranged meetings with the descendants to get to know them personally. Scouting out suitable shooting locations and conducting painstaking research into clothing, furniture and other objects in the historic photos took around ten months.

The resulting discourse within families, their engagement with their own past and some unique moments (such as when a young woman for a brief moment transformed herself into an image of her grandmother) have created an invisible social sculpture which exerts influence on the exhibition.

For the INN SITU project twenty new works involving Tyrol and Vorarlberg residents were created.

Orly Zailer

(born 1982, Israel) studied photography at Goldsmiths College (University of London) and the NB Haifa School of Design. Exhibitions in London, Tel Aviv, Toronto and Bogotá. Internationally acclaimed series of works ‘The Time Elapsed Between Two Frames’. In the German-speaking world she has appeared on television on ARTE and 3sat, and her portrait work has been the subject of articles in Der Spiegel and Die Welt. She lives and works in Israel.

Solo Exhibitions:

• Orly Zailer, AHNEN. Neue Porträts: BTV Stadtforum, FO.KU.S | Innsbruck | 2019
• On Yoske’s Chair: Solo Exhibition in Ha’Kibbutz Israeli Art Gallery | Tel Aviv | 2015

Group Exhibitions and Festivals:

• Movement – Urban Photographers: Bogotá Arte Contemporáneo | Bogotá | 2015
• Regeneration: Doinel Gallery | London | 2014
• Movement – Association of Urban Photographers: Silverprint Gallery | London | 2014
• Regenerating Capital: Roca Gallery | London | 2014
• Toronto Urban Photography Festival: 2nd place winner | Toronto | 2014
• Crossing Lines: The Greenwich Gallery | London | 2013
• Surface of Self: Photofusion Gallery | London | 2013
• Urban Photography Festival: London | 2013
• Third Effect group Exhibition: Foto8 Gallery | London | 2012
• Home – A Collaborative Exhibition: Linear House | London | 2012
• Photomonth: East London Photography Festival | 2012
• Urban Photography Festival: London | 2012
• Wizo Academy Graduation Exhibition: Haifa | 2008

The photographer wishes to thank Silvia Martin, Elisabeth Bittenauer, and Anja Strumpf for their help with the organizing of photo shoots in Tyrol and Vorarlberg, and the following companies for lending equipment as well as providing support and locations:

• carla Store, Bludenz
• Die Bäckerei – Kulturbackstube, Innsbruck
• Ernst Derfeser GmbH, Vomp
• Hotel Restaurant Burtschahof, Bürserberg
• Schoscha Einrichtungen, Bregenz
• Ventilator Altwarenhandel, Dornbirn

Music from the 17th century, improvisation and new contemporary music by and featuring Anne Marie Dragosits (harpsichord), Claudia Norz (violin), Walter Rumer (double bass), Midori Seiler (violin) and Christian Wegscheider (piano). Concert design: Folkert Uhde.

“Drawing inspiration from Orly Zailer’s work, in my program I use the technique of thematic juxtaposition. Just as in Zailer’s case, Innsbruck—in situ—is the focal point of the action.

Through 17th-century and modern music, the ensemble creates references to Zailer’s work, using its own language to weave multiple types of thread in various ways.

The toccata as a musical form is ideal as a carrier of musical ideas. Thanks to its improvisational character and harmonic audacity, it is an ambassador of modern as well as early music. Unpredictable by nature, the toccata maintains a dialogue with the unknown. As a result, noticeable similarities between the musical images of the past and present become apparent. While modern music can be imitative, with poses, comments and improvisation, in the musical portraits from the early baroque, the affected may in some cases sound imitative, but in other cases there may be charming variations. Images of the beautiful and the simple appear and seek out the similar. Sometimes nimble tirades with impressively virtuoso phrases establish their own independence and are then reproduced in the spirit of the modern Zeitgeist. One can hear the same and the different, with occasional moralising subjective ideas which then— happily—get lost in their counterparts.”

Participants:

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Walter Rumer

is a double bassist in Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (Academy for Early Music Berlin, short name: Akamus), one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras playing period instruments. He appears regularly with Akamus at major European and international venues (London, New York, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, etc.). He also teaches at Mozarteum University Salzburg and heads the double bass class at the Tyrolean State Conservatory. With a select ensemble of internationally renowned soloists he has created a dialogue of baroque music, contemporary composition and jazz improvisation.

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Anne Marie Dragosits

Harpsichordist Anne Marie Dragosits is a native Tyrolean. As soloist and continuo player she is an international performer who plays regularly with ensembles and orchestras such as vivante, Barucco, Barocksolisten München, L’Orfeo Barockorchester, L’Arcadia and Musica Alchemica.

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Claudia Norz

studied baroque violin and is a UK-based independent musician. She regularly performs with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, La Serenissima and Classical Opera, and is a founding member of the ensemble Klingzeug, with whom she has appeared at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, musik+, Jeunesse Österreich and elsewhere. Since 2014 she has taught historical musicianship at the Tyrolean State Conservatory.

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Midori Seiler

is a member of Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (Akamus). With Akamus and Anima Eterna, the orchestra of the Belgian fortepiano specialist Jos van Immerseel, Seiler has played violin concertos from the baroque and classical repertoire at Wigmore Hall London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the concert hall of the Viennese Music Association and in many other European cities. She is professor of baroque violin and viola at the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar.

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Christian Wegscheider

studied jazz piano at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. 1993 recipient of the Austrian State Scholarship for Jazz. He has played in numerous international concerts and featured on dozens of albums as band leader or sideman. Commissioned compositions for Lucerne and Tyrol Symphony Orchestras, Mittelsächsische Philharmonie, Jazzorchester Tirol and others. He teaches jazz piano at Mozarteum University Salzburg.

© Darko Todorovic | Photography | adrok.net

Folkert Uhde

is a leading international pioneer in new concert design. He is artistic director of the Montforter Zwischentöne event series in Vorarlberg and of the Köthener Bachfesttage (Köthen Bach Days), and also co-founder of Radialsystem Berlin arts centre.

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