Oded Balilty

Biography

1979 Born in Jerusalem1998-2001 Served as a Photographer for the IDF magazine "BAMAHANE"2001-2001 Photographer for "Zoom 77" News AgencyFrom 2002 AP (Associated Press) Photographer in Jerusalem2005 Was chosen to attend the JOOP World Press Master Class2007 Pulitzer Prize award in Braking News Photography2007-2008 was based in Beijing, China, for Associated PressToday lives in.

Along the Lines

Eight meters high concrete walls. The concept of a protect fence seems simple. But the concrete walls running through the streets, the homes and the sidewalks of the West Bank tell only a small part of a long complex story that began nearly 60 years ago, The story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 749 Kilometers of concrete and razor wire tell a story of distrust, animosity and hostility between two peoples, locked in a feud over land. Since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the lives of the two nations became eternally entangled, each fighting to have a homeland, the Palestinians to rid themselves of a military occupation tangible in every part of life. As an Israeli-born photographer, I watched the barrier growing and spreading, physical proof of a hatred that until now could only be felt. Over four years, taking photographs and growing as a photographer, the barrier grew with me , from one-meter high to three meters and finally to eight meters. The photographs in this exhibition are a record of this time, of the process of separation and removal taking place between the tow peoples.

Oded Balilty.

Marginal Notes

Rarely have I stood open-mouthed in front of photographs as fascinating and moving as those by Oded Balilty.In my profession, many photographs pass under my eyes every day, some of them beautiful, some interesting, whereas very few authors manage to get me to the point where I say to myself:” Here I have reached new places in a domain that I know very well.“ How is it possible that this idea hasn’t come to my head?- I wonder-How does it come that I haven’t seen these places before ? I, that wander through this land, yearning to reveal new images? That is a fact. Here they are, in front of my eyes. Balilty leads me, just as a seeing person leads a blind one, from photograph to photograph, from idea to idea, to the old well-known places he recreates in the wonderful way only a brilliant photographer can do. That’s the very quality of a great photographer: to show us the different, the emotional rather than the banal. From the reality spread out in front of us, he is the one who will draw out the pure essence of it in his work. He is the one. The photographs shown here convey both beauty and sorrow, perhaps because they reflect the image of a country without borders, a neglected place, something temporary like in this photograph of a shabby shelter on the Dead Sea shore or the Surrealist Wall near the beach of Zikim. But perhaps from this image of despondency, from this transience emerges the hope that the temporary will be replaced by something permanent with everlasting hope.

Alex Levac

Restraint

Restraint is Oded Balilty's second one-man show at N & N Aman Gallery.

The works included in the exhibition are utterly different from Balilty's well-known press images. Switching from a dynamic style aiming at commemorate a moment or person, he turns to working with a tripod, focusing on an object. He chooses to ignore the instincts of a photojournalist and experience a different process - one more deliberate rather than intuitive. "Coming from a place of acquired knowledge and experience, I stilled urge and instinct, and thus became ready to make a choice. I chose restraint."

Restraint is palpable not only in the photographic technique, but also in the very essence of the exhibited photographs.

The root of restraint is wisdom, strength. Without them it is too hard to hold back.In several photographs Balilty presents a series of photographs depicting punching mats. This piece of training equipment serves young boxers in training to hit their opponent, but it also teaches them how to control their emotions and impulses in the same way as the photographer learns to control his.

In another photograph, Balilty documents a visit Defense Minister Ehud Barak paid to the "Iron Dome" launcher during the Pillar of Defense operation. Balilty chooses to show us a still-life instead of a militant portrait. The are no people shown in any of the photographs in this show, and yet their absence just serves to accentuate our preoccupation with them.