Toby Cohen – Cherubim & Angels
Past Exhibition
06.05.2010 - 06.08.2010
In his first one man show in Israel, Toby Cohen, a British born photographer, presents a series of large scale panoramic photographs that trace his Jewish identity, and document his journey in the obscurity of contemporary Judaism. From the Jewish martial arts of the “Abir”, via spiritual journeys in Uman with the Hassidic Breslav, to the Tkoa settlers – Cohen documents and turns them into flying and dancing scenes.
All the seven photographs displayed in this exhibition have a story of their own. For example, the flying Sukkah built by Cohen after studying the rules of a Kosher Sukkah, or the “Abir” warrior with whom he visited the Habaal Shem Tov’s grave in Ukraine.
The name of the exhibition, “Cherubim and Angels”, is inspired by the mythic hybrid creatures who are described in the Old Testament as being between man and god. By depicting his photographic subjects as flying objects, Cohen actually elevates them to a climax of spiritual sublimity, detached from the tangible.
The highlight of the exhibition is a photography project that lasted for several months and which was documented in a video – a staged photography by Cohen as a tribute to Maurycy Gottlieb’s “Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur”. Cohen found himself attracted to Gottlieb, who died on the age of 23 – both as an artist and as a Jew.
He accurately recreated Gottlieb’s painting, using his family, relatives, and friends as models. Cohen himself appears in the photography as Gottlieb, who perpetuated himself in the painting.
THE SKY IS THE LIMIT /Micha Bar-Am
The first time I met Toby Cohen, several years ago, he still used to present himself as a proud hunter-photographer of the old school, named by the media as paparazzi.
However, his obsessive curiosity along with the search for his Jewish identity set him on an intriguing route: he has been taken by the landscapes of Israel, yet at the same time attracted to the erotic magic born out of the combination of youth, uniforms and potency.
His close-ups of soldiers and female IDF combat unit fighters are also an attempt to define himself in relation to them.
As a field photographer he is drawn into the photogenic and dramatic subjects, through which he feels as well as moves the beholder.
For a better understanding of his impression of Maurycy Gottlieb’s painting “Jews praying on Yom Kippur” he reconstructs the scene and resets it, and in a last-minute decision sets himself as the tragic artist.
From there the road to the characters hovering above, representing the efforts to reach higher spheres, is short, and the combination of Jewish mysticism and the technology of digital photography – intriguing.
