Esther Shalev-Gerz — Portfolio — Slash Paris

In the Age of Labor, a text wrote for Shalev-Gerz’ “Describing Labor” exhibition catalogue, 2012, The Wolfsonian-FIU, USA, Jacques Rancière writes:

“Time and again, Esther Shalev-Gerz shows us that things never speak for themselves. They speak to us, that is to say, they tell us about the community that is formed between us through them—provided we try to speak to them, albeit at the risk of approximation, to listen to their speech, to confront it with what our eyes see and with what our own words can say.”

For the exhibition “Esther Shalev-Gerz: Between Listening and Telling” at the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2012, Georges Didi-Huberman in turn wrote in the text ’Blancs soucis’ of our History:

“In her installations, Esther Shalev-Gerz has never ceased to instigate dialogues, to give shape to interlocutory situations: she asks this and that person questions, she confronts faces and points of view, she worries about stories –even simple opportunities to smile –from everyone, she questions objects (like those found in the earth of Buchenwald camp in the work MenschenDinge –The Human Aspect of Objects, 2004-2006), practices (like photography), in the prism of each unique story, as in collective history.20In doing so, she unceasingly questions transmission right down to its effects of disarray or perdition.”