About Helmar Lerski:
Conducting a course on Israeli visual culture at UCLA, Dr. Gilboa
stumbled upon black & white photographed series, entitled _Metamorphose,
Verwandlungen durch Licht by Helmar Lerski_ (1936). The stark contrast
caused by lighting, dramatic close-ups and types presented, is a
reminder of Russian propaganda posters in 1917 as well as Nazi statues
from the 1930s. What struck Anat Gilboa the most was the fact that
Lerski, an avid Zionist, created these images during the period he was
residing in Mandatory Palestine.
Dr. Gilboa presented the initial study at an international conference in
UCLA in 2013, and has been researching this topic ever since.
Background
The cinematographer and photographer Helmar Lerski was invited to work
in Mandatory Palestine from 1932 to 1948. The local Arab Revolt and the
mass immigration of German Jews into the area, in response to the
Nuremberg Race Laws, inspired Lerski to create a photographic portfolio
in 1936. For a model, the artist chose a young man of European descent,
shooting on a roof-top in Tel-Aviv with help of large mirrors. The
outcome is a series of different personalities, among them a young hero,
a Jewish prophet, an Arab sheik wearing a headdress, and the likeness of
an old nun. Dr. Gilboa argues that Lerski’s 1936 photographic portfolio
is a reference to Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, Franz Kafka’s novella
_Metamorphosis_, and an indication to contemporary German-speaking
Expressionist perceptions of ‘Verwandlungen’ and ‘Wandlung’ as metaphors
for unwelcome change, fear and demise.
Notions of depravation, degradation, misery and poverty were described
in contemporary literary works such as in Ernst Toller’s theatre play
_Die Wandlung_ (1919), Bertholt Brecht’s _Dreigroschenoper_ (1928), and
in Alfred Döblin’s novel _Berlin-Alexanderplatz (1929). Similar themes
were depicted in silent movies such as _Das Wachsfigurenkabinett_ by
Paul Leni (1924), _Die Abenteuer eines Zehnmarkscheines_ by Viennese
poet and film director, Berthold Viertel (1926), and _Metropolis_ by
Fritz Lang (1927), to mention but a few.
While living in Berlin from 1915 until emigrating to Palestine, Lerski
worked and socialized with artists and local intelligentsia, among them
Leni Riefenstahl, Fritz Lang, Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, Berthold
Viertel, Albert Einstein and Kafka’s confident, Max Brod. In her talk,
Dr. Anat Gilboa will aim to demonstrate that – although drawing from
traditional and contemporary concepts of transformation as a metaphor
for instability and disability – Lerski opted for the opposite,
welcoming change as a positive source of life, creativity, and equality.
Dr. Anat Gilboa is an art-historian, and an adjunct lecturer at Ono
Academic College in Israel. She holds a doctorate degree from the
Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and a master’s degree
from Tel Aviv University. Dr. Gilboa taught for more than a decade at
American universities, among them Oregon State University in Portland
(OG), and UCLA in Los Angeles. She is currently completing a manuscript
on the perception of the Holocaust in Israeli visual culture. The
research will be published in a book series at the Center for Jewish
Studies at the University of Graz. Among her other publications are a
monograph on the theme of femininity in Rembrandt’s oeuvre (2003), and a
Catalogue Raisonné on the perception of the Bible in works of Jewish
artists in the American Midwest (2014). She also published various
articles and book-chapters in Europe and the US. Dr. Gilboa’s research,
academic courses, and public talks reflect a focus on cross-disciplinary
analysis of Jewish and Israeli visual culture, gender issues, history,
religion, and literature. These are the core themes that define modern
Israeli identity and its complexity.
