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Itai Doron: Strays - Other Criteria

Exhibition preview

OTHER Criteria is presenting Strays, an exhibition of Master Prints by Itai Doron – from September 9 to October 1, 2011 (Private View: September 8 from 6pm to 8pm).

The exhibition, featuring thirty images selected from his monographs, specifically Yassin and Chokras’ Mahal, coincides with the launch of Chokras’ Mahal, Doron’s latest publication.

Itai Doron’s series of photographs essentially begin as studies, often through formal portraiture, of the essence of life on the city streets. Books function as a central format for his work and Strays sheds a light on the process of finding narrative, of selecting and sequencing images to make a compelling visual story.

The exhibition thus reveals the process as well as the consequences of making these editorial decisions. On show will be photographs from his two most recent publications as well as unseen additional prints.

For the exhibition, Doron chose images from his 2006 photographic project Yassin, which tells the story of Yassin El Messoudi and his two younger brothers whom the artist met by chance in London.

The Messoudi brothers, who form a troupe of hand-balancing acrobats, were captured in an intimate series of photographs that also marks out in great detail symbols from their surroundings – the interior of the caravan which is home, their collection of knives, fighting paraphernalia and their dog.

The photographs reveal the reality behind the romantic notion of life as a circus traveller as well as the pride the Messoudi boys take in workmanship and their trade.

Doron’s latest publication, Chokras’ Mahal is the second source for imagery in Strays. The project, executed in India in 2005, resulted in a collection of photographs capturing Doron’s encounters with Indian street boys and downtrodden, stray dogs. Avoiding the visual clichés that the place presents, the photographs express a sense of acceptance and survival against the sun-bleached landscape.

The book comprises 60 colour and tritone photographs and is described by Doron as a coming of age novel without words with the waifs and strays of Northern India as its set of characters.

Doron says: “My interest in travel is central to my work and I use photography as a tool for creating visual tales and exploring the realities of disparate cities and people whose countries I travel through. The life of displaced beings: be it circus people, immigrants, street kids or stray dogs become a recurring theme in my work, as well as the relationship between men and brotherhood that is bound by the lack of, and longing for, contact.”

Admission: Free.

Times: Monday to Saturday 10am-6pm.

Other Criteria, 36 New Bond Street, London, W1