Naomi Leshem (Hebrew: נעמי לשם; born 3 November 1963) is an Israeli photographer.[2] Her works are in the collections of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Norton Museum of Art in Florida, USA.[3] She received the Constantiner Photography Award for an Israeli Artist from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2009.[3][4]

Naomi Leshem
Born1963 (age 60–61)[1]
Jerusalem, Israel
CitizenshipIsrael
OccupationPhotographer
AwardsConstantiner Photography Award for an Israeli Artist
Websitehttps://www.naomileshem.com/

Biography

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Leshem was born in Jerusalem, Israel.[5] In 1987, she graduated from the Department of Photography at Hadassah Academic College in Jerusalem. In 1984–1985, she studied General and German Studies at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.[5] In 2014, she received the Mifal HaPayis Arts and Culture Grant.[5] Her photographs feature a range of conceptual explorations of multiple levels of life alongside death, an area in which her work has been influenced by her life as a second-generation Holocaust survivor and an IDF widow from a young age, as well as by the collective Israeli experience.[3]

She teaches at various art schools.[6]

Works

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Leshem's artworks have been shown in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Rietberg Museum in Zürich, Norton Museum of Art, Florida, Noga Gallery in Tel Aviv, Andrea Meislin Gallery in New York and in the Ncontemporary Gallery in London.[5]

Following the Constantiner Photography Award, an exhibition of her series Runways was held at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2009–2010.[7]

Another exhibition of her work, Ghosts of Others was held at Noga Gallery of Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv in 2019. In this exhibition, Naomi Leshem departed from her custom of beginning from moments in her own biography and instead used images originating from other people's individual or collective history as her points of departure— from images photographed in the trenches of WWI in Alsace, to a close-up of a Belgian locket from the 1940s lying on the chest of a young Israeli woman.[8]

Sleepers is another series by Leshem, in which she photographed teenagers in Israel, Switzerland, France, and the United States, over a period of three years, in various stages of their sleep in their bedrooms. The series explores portraiture and the interim state of sleep as a representation of a stage between life and death in different cultures and religions. The series was exhibited in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Andrea Meislin Gallery in New York City, the Kunst(zeug)Haus Rapperswil in Switzerland, and other galleries.[9] A book of the exhibition was published jointly by the Swiss publisher Benteli and the Israeli publisher Even Hoshen. The book contains 32 images of sleeping children alongside text written specifically for the works by Israeli writer Eshkol Nevo, Israeli artists Eran Tzur [he] and Reuven Kupperman [he], Swiss writer Urs Faes [de], German poet and novelist Ulla Hahn, and Serbian-Canadian writer David Albahari.[10]   

Collections

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References

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  1. ^ "Institut für moderne Kunst Nürnberg".
  2. ^ "Leshem, Naomi". Deutsche-biographie.de. Deutsche Biographie. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  3. ^ a b c Ahronovitz, Esti (15 October 2009). "On the Runway of Life". Haaretz. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  4. ^ "Tel Aviv Museum of Art Presents Exhibition by Winner of 2008 Constantiner Award". The New York Jewish Week. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  5. ^ a b c d "Naomi Leshem". In.bgu.ac.il. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  6. ^ "Leshem, Naomi". Museum.imj.org.il. Information Center for Israeli Art. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  7. ^ "Tel Aviv Museum of Art – Past Exhibitions". Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  8. ^ "naomi leshem / ghosts of others". Noga Gallery of Contemporary Art. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  9. ^ Dykstra, Jean. "Naomi Leshem" (PDF). Art in America. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 June 2020.
  10. ^ Leshem, Naomi (2011). Roelin, Peter; Guggenheimer, Michael (eds.). Sleepers. Bern-Sulgen-Zürich: Benteli Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7165-1672-0.
  11. ^ a b c Brawarsky, Sandee (21 January 2014). "Precariously Balanced". The New York Jewish Week. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  12. ^ "Norton Museum of Art Presents Recent Photography Acquisitions". Museumpublicity.com. Museum Publicity. 12 November 2011. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  13. ^ "Naomi Leshem". Collection.meeschaert.com (in French). Meeschaert. Retrieved 10 July 2020.

Bibliography

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