Rafael Y. Herman

Curated by Attila Nemes

Press Preview: Thursday, February 15th 2018, 3:30 PM
Opening: Thursday, February 15th 2018, 6 PM
Open for public: 16 February – 1 April 2018

From 16 February to 1 April 2018 Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art
– hosts Rafael Y. Herman’s first solo exhibition in Hungary.

The exhibition presents recent works by Rafael Yossef Herman known for creating his work with the hidden existence of the night’s darkness. By observing this large scale photographic installation, the Israel-born artist’s representation of the nocturnal world may look like daylight to the viewer.

The works chosen for this exhibition at the Ludwig Museum mainly show pathways or clearings in forests and open fields with flowers. As we walk through the differently lit rooms there is a confrontation between the forest images placed in an intensely dark environment with those capturing flower fields and large spring-like open spaces of nature placed in an overlit room. Forests are usually perceived as dark and shady even on a sunny day while open fields considered light and sunny at all times. By creating this supporting environment the viewer is confronted with his own limitations of perception. The visitor enters this ‘other reality’ by doing nothing but being present. In this it can be seen that Herman’s nocturnal images are not simply eliminating the ‘horror’ of the night by creating a daylight-like atmosphere but are constructing an alternative reality that has never been seen by the human eye. Herman examines the limits of surreality and timeless reality in these works that encapsulate imperceivable, or imaginary realities. In a sense, he is researching virtuality. Virtual realities, games, and simulations that are so influential to the present allow us to seek into areas unknown to the human eye.

The night landscapes shot by Herman do not exist for our eyes. These strange lights of the night normally can only be perceived by technology. Compared to the experience of the real daylight, we perceive odd shadows, the features of moonlight, colour spectrum and shimmering details that differ from sunlight. Herman creates a new reality out of the mystery of the night. He highlights the fact that although the night landscape is close to us, its details cannot be observed. These landscapes do not exist for the human eye, they are insights into another reality.

About Rafael Y. Herman

Rafael Y. Herman was born in 1974 in Be’er Sheva, Israel. The winner of the Prague Photosphere Award in 2015, Herman began studying classical music at the age of six, becoming a percussionist in Philharmonic orchestras, ensembles and rock bands. Following a long stay in New York City, he studied at the School of Economics and Management at the University of Tel Aviv. Graduating in 2000, he moved to Latin America, taking a long research trip in seven countries: photographing Cuban musicians, the Carnival of Bahia and the Zapatistas in Mexico, working with Amnesty International in Paraguay, then studying painting in Mexico City and Chile and becoming part of an artists’ commune. This visual apprenticeship combines vision, metropolitan experience and encounters with uncontaminated nature. In 2003, Herman moved to Milan, showing the project “Bereshit- Genesis” at Palazzo Reale, a project created with a method of his own devising: nocturnal photography without electronic aids or digital manipulation, revealing what cannot normally be seen by the naked eye. This exhibition launched Herman into the international art scene. His works are in prominent public and private collections, including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Salsali Private Museum of Dubai and MAXXI national museum, Italy. Herman’s recent solo exhibition in the magnificent Testaccio pavilion of MACRO museum in Rome claimed great international attention and marked the largest exhibition of the artist prior to the Ludwig Museum solo Exhibition in Budapest. Rafael Y. Herman is an invited artist of Ville de Paris at La Cité Internationale des Arts and currently works and lives in Paris.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue.