Face | Israel | 2010-2015
28 images Created 7 Mar 2020
During 2010, Israel was in turmoil when a wave of social awakening and protests filled the streets. Tebol in response launched his "Face Project"- an award winning series of portraits (Local Testimony, series of the year, 2011, exhibited at Eretz Israel Museum), photographed between 2010-2015 and depicting a cross section of Israel's society. The photographs were taken with the subjects consent, crossing into their territory physically as well as emotionally, using natural window light and black canvas as a background. The photographed subjects face us, surrendering themselves to our gaze.
In a way the series is a natural extension of Tebol's "Land research", using the same typological approach, while shifting the camera from the landscape to the human material assembling Israel's society. The series signals a typology recalling the work of August Sander. Tebol's portraits, however, do not attempt to document social classification, although they draw on a highly heterogenic population. They emphasize sameness in terms of the human experience, simultaneously disclosing the uniqueness of a single life.
Struggling with photography as art versus documentation Tebol ignores biographic information, ethics or political issues. The people become faces gathered under a uniform title, lacking names, interpretation or identification other than the highlighted features of the face. His disregard of the anecdotic turns the photographed people into storytellers. The camera is a listener. Berger will address that feeling in a photograph as "the river explaining itself".
In a way the series is a natural extension of Tebol's "Land research", using the same typological approach, while shifting the camera from the landscape to the human material assembling Israel's society. The series signals a typology recalling the work of August Sander. Tebol's portraits, however, do not attempt to document social classification, although they draw on a highly heterogenic population. They emphasize sameness in terms of the human experience, simultaneously disclosing the uniqueness of a single life.
Struggling with photography as art versus documentation Tebol ignores biographic information, ethics or political issues. The people become faces gathered under a uniform title, lacking names, interpretation or identification other than the highlighted features of the face. His disregard of the anecdotic turns the photographed people into storytellers. The camera is a listener. Berger will address that feeling in a photograph as "the river explaining itself".
