Shai Kremer currently resides
between the three different countries of France, Israel, and the United States.
He completed his his M.F.A. at the School of Visual Arts in New York, NY, with
studies in photography and related media. Kremer has always maintained a strong
interest in issues concerning his native country of Israel, turning his artistic
focus to document the nation's political tensions.
Interested in the
lasting effects of the military on the natural environment of Israel and its inhabitants,
Kremer began his Infected Landscape series (2001-2006) which documents the visible
traces of military violence in the war-torn country. Kremer describes the project
as "a seven year metaphoric portrayal of the military disfiguration of the Israeli
landscape," aiming to "reveal how every piece of land has become infected with
loaded sediments of the ongoing conflict." This project was published as a monograph
by Dewi Lewis Publishing and has traveled in Europe and the USA. The artist continues
this theme in his ongoing project Fallen Empires as he looks back at the history
of military abuse of the land in Israel, focusing on the past military occupants
of the country that failed to maintain ownership over the land. Kremer brings
up provocative questions in his works, asking his viewers: who, if anyone, has
a right to own the land?
Kremer is also working on an ongoing project
on New York in which he documents lesser-travelled parts of the city, focusing
on parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn to emphasize the ongoing change of the city
and to highlight the many contradictions beneath the city's idyllic image.
Fallen Empires [view
images]
New Horizons [view
images]
Infected Landscape: Panoramas [view
images]
Infected Landscape [view
images]