גדעון סלע

About my work
In January 2003 my mother died at the advanced age of 92.
Amongst other things, I found countless photographs, documents and collections in
my parents’ estate, all neatly preserved and well kept, covering a time-span of more than a
hundred and fifty years; a family tree and most importantly, my grandmother’s and her
sister’s letters, written on extremely thin airmail paper from the years 1939-1942. At first
from Cologne and then Theresienstadt, the last one written on a Red Cross form – only 25
words allowed.
As a photographer and an artist, who grew up in Israel, speaking German at home
before learning Hebrew, I simply couldn’t leave this material untouched.
In the course of a few years I used the letters and some of the photographs as raw
material for a personal study of family memory: the letters were transformed into artobjects,
almost to abstraction – the original material lost its personal character and in the
process gained a new meaning of much wider historical and human perspective.
What had at first started as a private interest in my family’s estate - slowly
turned into an obsession of mounting the letters- layer after layer- to create
palimpsests, and the photographs, mainly portraits - were images processed to fade
away, almost beyond recognition. But these last remnants of figurativeness –maybe
due to my dual identity – is the only way I can refer to who I am and what should be
kept for the future.
I am also searching for a dialogue between my German cultural roots and my Israeli-
Jewish heritage by exhibiting in Dusseldorf, in the Rhineland, where my mother was
born in Unkel am Rhein in 1910, and my father in Essen in 1906.

Palimpsests -

Photography and Drawings

Andrea Morein Gideon Sella

plan.d. Produzentengalerie e.V.

Dorotheenstrasse 59 40235 Düsseldorf

mail@galerie-plan-d.de www.galerie-plan-d.de

For further Information: Andrea Isa: 0163 9600114

Opening:

Saturday, Feb. 2nd 2013 at 8 pm

Closing :

Sunday, Feb. 24th 2013 at 3 pm

Opening hours :

Thursday & Friday 4 - 7 pm

Saturday & Sunday 3 - 6 pm

Special opening hours:

Düsseldorf Photo Weekend:

Saturday, 2

nd Feb.12 - 8 pm & Sunday, 3rd Feb. 12 - 6 pm

http://www.gideonsella.com/