Ilanit Illouz

Wadi Qelt, in The Stony Light

Curated by Sonia Voss

Wadi Qelt, in the Stony Light is based on extensive research into the natural elements and proposes an experimental photographic study of Wadi Qelt, a valley situated in the Judaean Desert between Jerusalem and Jericho, near the Dead Sea. The dramatic desiccation of the lake has transformed the region into a lunar zone, corroded by salt. The artist collects this salt from the desert floor and then, in her studio, uses it to fossilize her prints, lending them a sculptural quality. Both image and structural component at once, the salt solidifies the work and makes it scintillate, revealing the organic properties of the mineral, but also its hieratic beauty, evoking a landscape for contemplation but also a threatened ecosystem.

Curator: SONIA VOSS

Born in 1978, Paris, France. Lives and works in Paris and Berlin, Germany.

Sonia Voss is an author and exhibition curator. She has presented among others: "Isabelle Le Minh: Real Crystal" (Goethe Institut Paris & Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation Berlin, 2019-20), "Impatient Corps: East German Photography 1980-89" (Rencontres d'Arles, 2019), "Alfred Ehrhardt: The Forms of Nature" (Kyotography, 2019), as well as two exhibitions at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris: "Sophie Calle, Serena Carone: Beau doublé, Monsieur le marquis!" (2017-18) and "George Shiras: Inside the Night" (2016-17). She also accompanied Anton Roland Laub, nominated with Mobile Churches for the New Discovery Prize in 2018. She has edited books for Xavier Barral, Koenig Books, Filigranes and Kehrer.

Artist: ILANIT ILLOUZ

Born in 1977 in Paris, France. Lives and works in Paris.

Graduated from the National School of Arts of Paris-Cergy in 2005, Ilanit Illouz has developed a practice based on processes of photographic and mechanical reproductions, sometimes unpublished. Her work is crossed by the question of the story, always understood through the off-screen or the ellipse, and is based on surveying, investigation, observation, techniques in which memory is physically put to the test. She recently exhibited at the Institut pour la photographie de Lille and at the CRP / regional center of Photography Hauts-de-France and is currently preparing her first monograph, to be published by EYD Paris.