Interview: Igal Stulbach
Luca Curci talks with Igal Stulbach during the 18th Edition of VENICE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR, at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello.

“I’m a visual artist making photography, documentary films and video art. I’m exploring the borders between those fields. Born in Krakow Poland in the year 1949 to Holocaust survivors, since 1959 living in Bat Yam, Israel. I started my artistic activity at a relatively late age. In the year 2015, I made a documentary film named “Group Portrait” ( Short monologues by second-generation Holocaust survivors) which was broadcast on Israeli national TV -channel 10 and screened in several cinematheques. My video art and photography works have been shown in exhibitions in Israel and abroad. I received awards for my artwork in several photography and film contests and festivals. My photographs have been published in print and online magazines”.

Luca Curci – Which artists have somehow had an influence on your work?
Igal Stulbach – A long time ago, in the 70th, I saw pictures of some American photographers and it changed the way I was thinking about photography – I realised that it can express not just beauty but a sense of a place and time. I think that most of them belonged to a group called ” New Topographics”.
Another strong influence on my work is Japanese aesthetics Wabi Sabi – acceptance of transience and imperfection. I like the way of work and the images of Daido Moriyama.

LC – How much has the city/country in which you grew up/born affected your work as an artist?
IS – I like to photograph places that I have a personal attachment to. I’m not a travel photographer.
I was born in Krakow, Poland, which is a beautiful city but mostly I work in the Tel Aviv area.
I like to explore the contrasts between the different areas of the metropolitan and are drawn to slums.

LC – What are the three hashtags essential to define your poetics that you could not give up?
IS – #night #tel aviv #change

LC – Where do you find your inspiration?
IS – I am a Flâneur. Flânerie, simply put, is an art of strolling and looking. In her 1977 collection of essays, On Photography, Susan Sontag describes how, since the development of hand-held cameras in the early 20th century, the camera has become the tool of the flâneur. In her words: “The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitring, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, a connoisseur of empathy, he finds the world “picturesque.” The night is the preferred time for me, more interesting than the day, actually not only for photography, I am a night bird.

LC -What is the most challenging part about creating your artworks?
IS – Until about the age of 50 I almost had not photographed, I hated the chemical and analogue processes involved in photography and video so the digital era was a revelation for me – it made everything easier and accessible. I do not like to go in the same direction for a long time. I need new challenges and my ways of work need to change quite frequently. Sometimes it slows me down.

LC – In which way the artwork presented in our exhibition is connected with the exhibition’s theme?
IS – I think my work is contemporary.

LC – Can you explain something about the artworks you have in our exhibition?
IS – That artwork is a video created out of still images, accompanied by music. I constantly work on a border between still and moving images. It may sound sad for some but I believe that in the future most art will not be in the form of objects but as digital screening and broadcast. I tend to have a futuristic view of the world so I see the benefits of it.

LC – What do you think about the organization of our event?
IS – It was well organised.

LC – Would you suggest a collaboration with us? What do you think about our services?
IS – I would suggest to artists a collaboration with you. Itsliquid representatives I had interaction with were helpful and friendly.