Orit Raff
Orit Raff was born in Jerusalem in 1970, and she lives and works in Tel Aviv.
Orit Raff creates spare photographs, installations, and video works, which suggest intimacy, the private self, and evoke memories of our earliest experiences. Raff favors the implicit over the explicit. She follows traces and signs of a place or a time with her camera, wishing to give life to a frozen memory and to construct a narrative from vague fragments, left behind as a present absence: the marking of furniture in an abandoned space, signs engraved on school desks, or ice accumulations in an empty household refrigerator.
Raff also creates photographs of environments with cultural, sociological, and political dimensions. In her latest series of works, “Priming”, she gathers information that crosses cultures, locations, and periods, allowing her to discuss the medium of photography and its complex relation with the world of phenomena and documentations. In a unique technique of constructing photographs without the process of photography, Raff offers new possibilities for the ongoing discourse of simulation and its reference to reality, to imagination and fiction. This hybrid genre combines pure documentary photography with carefully staged photography, in a process that does not require a camera yet mimics a photographic site that is closely related with the act of photography.
The starkness of Raff’s imagery aesthetically links her work with Minimalism, but her references to common everyday life and objects also suggest a Pop sensibility.
Orit Raff attended Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, graduated cum laude from the School of Visual Arts in New York, and participated in the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1998-1999. In 2003, she completed an MFA at Bard College. She participated in group and solo exhibitions at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, The Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Forum des Images, Paris, School of Visual Arts, New York, Julie Saul Gallery, New York, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA Paula Boettcher Gallery, Berlin, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, Texas.
In 2013 she had a solo exhibition, “Priming”, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and at LAXART, Los Angeles, CA.
Orit Raff
Born 1970, Jerusalem, Israel
Lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel
Education
2000-02 MFA, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, NY
1998-99 The Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York
1994-96 BFA (cum laude), School of Visual Arts, New York
1992-94 Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2014 Priming, Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY
2014 Priming, LAXART, Los Angeles, CA
2013 Priming, The Tel Aviv Museum of Art (catalogue)
2011 Shangri-La, Noga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (catalogue)
2009 All Those Wonderful Places, Kiryat Tivon Art Gallery, Kiryat Tivon
2007 Blink, The New Gallery, Beit Gabriel on the Kinneret
2006 Insatiable, Rochester Contemporary, Rochester, New York
2005 Insatiable, Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue)
2005 Insatiable, Noga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (catalogue)
2004 Hunt-the-Slipper, Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY
2003 Insatiable, Cutting Edge Project at ARCO’03, Madrid, Spain
2002 Dynamic Equilibrium, SITE Santa Fe, Albuquerque, New Mexico (catalogue)
2002 Hunt-the-Slipper, Paula Boettcher Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2002 Hunt-the-Slipper, The Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan, Israel (catalogue)
2002 The Pot Calling the Kettle Black, Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY
2001 Hunt-the-Slipper, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2000 Thirty Times The Length Of My Breath, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2000 Baumgartner Gallery, curator Professor Dr. Rainer Crone, New York, NY (catalogue)
2000 Innen Zeichnung, The LISTE ’00 Young Art Fair Basel, Basel
2000 Approaching Saturation, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, Texas (catalogue)
2000 Inside Drawing, Julie Saul Gallery, New York (catalogue)
2000 Innen Zeichnung, Paula Bottcher Gallery, Berlin (catalogue)
1999 Geometry of Echoes, The Haifa Museum of Modern Art, Haifa, Israel
1999 Silverstein Gallery, New York
1998 The Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan, Israel (catalogue)
Selected Group Exhibitions
2019 25 years to Noga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
2018 Last Chance to see, Petach Tikva Museum of Art, Israel
2018 Flood, Ashdod Art Museum, Ashdod
2018 To the End of Land, National Gallery New Delhi, India
2017 Room 404, Indie Gallery Tel Aviv
2017 No Place, Dana Gallery, Kibbutz Yad Mordechai
2016 Lux:The Radiant Sea, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York
2016 Fact/ Fiction: The 9th Jeonju International Photo Festival, South Korea (catalogue)
2016 Visions of Place, Towson University, Towson Maryland (catalogue)
2016 Art Speaks Out: Till It’s Gone Exhibition, Istanbul Modern
2015 Art Speaks Out: Ikono TV’s Official ArtCop21 event
2015 Visions of Place, Steadman Gallery at Rutgers University’s Camden Center for the Arts (catalogue)
2015 Disrupted Spaces, The Rose Art Gallery at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
2015 Framing Desire: Photography and Video, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas
2013 Light Sensitive: Photographic Works from North Carolina Collections, Nasher Museum of Art at
2013 Duke University, Durham, NC
2013 Ikono On Air Festival, Berlin
2011 Videosphere: A New Generation, Albright-Knox, Buffalo, NY
2009 Rupture and Repair, The Jerusalem Artists’ House in cooperation with The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (catalogue)
2008 True North, Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (catalogue)
2007 Dateline Israel: Recent Photography and Video, The Jewish Museum, Berlin & The Jewish Museum, New York (catalogue)
2006 Glasskultur: What became of Transparence?, La Panera, Lerida, Spain & Koldo Mitxelena Museum, San Sebastian, Spain (catalogue)
2006 Bread, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel (catalogue)
2006 In relation to the Body, The Photography Gallery at the MIDRASHA Academy for the Arts, Beit Berl, Israel
2005 Traces and Omens, The Noorderlicht Photofestival, Groningen, The Netherlands (catalogue)
2005 The Photograph in Question, Von Lintel Gallery, New York, NY
2004 Staging Reality, Naples Museum of Art, Naples, FL
2004 Time Depot, Petach-Tikva Museum of Art, Petach-Tikva, Israel (catalogue)
2004 In Focus: Themes in Photography, Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY
2004 Able was I ere I saw Elba – Palindrome, Heimspiel, Frankfurt, Germany
2003 Staging Reality, Rutgers University, New Jersey & The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2003 Hot Summer in the City, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, NY
2003 Prague Biennale 1 – 2003: “Peripheries Become the Center”, Prague (catalogue)
2003 Gene (sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, Berkeley Art Museum, CA (catalogue)
2002 Multitude, Artists Space, New York, New York (catalogue)
2002 Marshim-Identitasok, National Gallery, Budapest, Hungary (catalogue)
2002 Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, The Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA
2001 Not Landscape: Fragments and Metaphors, SF CameraWork, San Francisco, CA
2001 Depicting Absence/Implying Presence, ICA San Jose, San Jose, CA (catalogue)
2001 RE-LOCATION: on moving, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, NY
2001 Size Matters, Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, NY
2000 A shot in the Head, Lisson Gallery, London
2000 Architectural Constructs in contemporary photography, Julie Saul Gallery, New York
2000 Looking Ahead – Visions of Israel, ICA San Jose, San Jose, CA
1999 The Wight Biennial UCLA, The New Wight Gallery, Los-Angeles
1999 Mediterranean Encounters 3, The ’99 Croatia Biennial, Dubrovnik, Croatia
1999 Thin Air, Julie Saul Gallery, New York
1999 New In The Nineties II, The Katonah Museum, Katonah, New York
1998 Under Construction, GEN ART New Visions, New York
1996 A Strategy Hinted at: New Conceptual Artists, Artists Space, New York
Awards And Scholarships
2005 The Jehoshua Rabinovich Tel Aviv Foundation for the Arts
2005 MIFAL HAPAIS – Israel National Lottery Council for the Arts Grant
2002 Milton and Sally Avery Scholarship
2001 The Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant in the field of the Visual Arts
2000 The International Studio Program, New York
1999 Special Award for Originality & Innovation, The ’99 Croatia Biennial, Dubrovnik, Croatia
1997 America Israel Cultural Foundation Fellowship, Tel-Aviv, Israel
1995 Award of Excellence, School of Visual Arts Mentor Program, New York
1994 Student Exchange Scholarship, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel
1992 Special Presidential Grant for Excellence, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel
Public Collections
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
CU Art Museum, University of Colorado at Boulder
Albright-Knox, Buffalo, NY
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, Tel-Aviv, Israel
The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University
The Haifa Museum of Modern Art, Haifa, Israel
The Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan, Israel
MIT List Visual Arts Center, Boston
Progressive Cooperation, Cleveland, Ohio
January 13, 2011
April 16, 2005
Aug 01, 2014
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 05, 2013
Feb 06, 2011
May 24, 2005
May 03, 2005
Feb 05, 1999
Recent News
February 21, 2015
Orit Raff, Untitled (Shirt),120x100cm, Archivel Pigment Print, 1997
October 30, 2014
Orit Raff, The End of Mr Y, 65x80cm, c-print,2013
Orit Raff, Freedom,65x80cm, c-print,2013