Tomer Ganihar

Tomer Ganihar, (Hebrew: תומר גניהר), is an Israeli photographer and writer, born in 1970. He has had solo photography shows in museums and galleries around the world. His photography is all shot without artificial lighting and using color film. He is a published author of a book of selected essays, a book of short stories and a novel. He has also written and directed the film "Prophet on the Run."
Biography.
Tomer Ganihar, a self-taught photographer, grew up and works in Israel. His first solo exhibition was shown at Limbus gallery of photography, Tel Aviv 1997, when he was awarded by The Israeli President Residence Prize for Young Artists. In 2000, he became the youngest artist to have a solo exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Since then, his works has been solo shown in museums and galleries such as Helsinki City Art Museum, GL STRAND Museum in Copenhagen, Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans), Paul Rodgers/9W Gallery N.Y and the Headquarters of the United Nations, New York. He has been living and working in New York City between 2000 and 2008, as well as in Italy and India and he is represented by Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles. Ganihar has participated in the international pavilion at the 52 Venice Biennale, in 2007, curated by Robert Storr (art academic) with his photo-series "hospital party".
Since an early stage, Ganihar's photography has focused mainly on crowds and on the Israeli young counterculture scene, rave parties, night clubs culture and multi-days nature parties in the Galilee forests and the Dead Sea. This work reflects a modern spiritual and cosmopolitan culture as an alternative to the reality of militarism, conflicts and religious tension in the Middle East. "The New Yorker" wrote: "There is elegy to the ecstasy in Tomer Ganihar's photographs of young Israeli party goers…'Raving in the Negev Desert' vibrates with mystical presence; its impressionistic blurs unite youthful bodies and ancient sand". In more recent years, Ganihar's photography is focused on abstracts of light and form.
Ganihar captures his images without artificial lighting, using color film only. Deborah Bach writes in The New York Times: "Perceiving light as a holy, unifying force, Mr. Ganihar works without a flash, using a slow shutter speed to capture the available light of his surroundings. The effect is often ethereal, the grainy figures in his photos awash in a kinetic radiance". "Pan, focus, dissolve; the visual variables are cinematic as much as they are photographic" wrote Robert Storr, "This is unsurprising given that Ganihar is also a filmmaker, and necessary given that the targets of his lens are usually kinetic".
In between 1996-1999, Ganihar's column " Electricity in the Air" has been published in Haaretz weekend magazine. His selected essays were published later in his book "Electricity in the Air", 2001. Ganihar's book of short stories, " Welcome To Texas", was published in 1996, and his novel "Sodom-City" was published in May 2015.
Ganihar wrote and directed the film "Prophet on the Run", a 54 minutes fiction. The film in which he also co-produced with Ido Berlad, was premiered in Tel Aviv Cinematheque in 2008, and participated The Britain International film festival (2008) and Los Angeles Film Festival (2009). Currently on production are Ganihar's films, "Shadow" and "Chosen".
Selected collections- public and private.
Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr. (Si Newhouse), N M Rothschild & Sons Bank Zurich , Yale University Art Gallery, Bronfman family, Michael Steinhardt, Stern family N.Y, Arthur Fleischer, Nouriel Rubini, Jewish Museum (Manhattan), Israel Museum, Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, GL STRAND Museum, Helsinki City Art Museum, D.H Blair Bank.