Alexander Agor
“Alex was born in 1948, in Berlin, of all places. In 1949 he went to live in Warsaw: 1958 came to Israel, and got his first camera in school. When he brought home shots of his class from a school-trip, his father told him: "One may earn a good deal of money from group-photographs. Mainly at Bar-Mitzvahs and Marriages. But if you want to use your camera as a means of expression, you should leave groups alone, concentrate on whatever really interests you." When he was 12 years old his first shots were published in a newspaper. In May, 1967, he became a soldier in Israel's Defence Army. This allowed him, by narrow margin, to fight in the Six Days War, which broke out in June 1967. The shots published below are typical of Alex Agor's elastic attitude. The world is an absurd and merry place. The realistic, apparent side of his work is, however, only a small part of a photographer's work. Didn't Luis Bunuel teach us, together with Fellini, that good photographic surrealism is more eye-catching than painted art? Alex Agor is happy to compose Surrealistic illusions for us. Considering the bad quality of printing paper, most newspaper editors in Israel choose to buy sharp shots, with as little grain as possible. Alex gives them what they wish, but rebels in his soul against the official dictate. Whenever he is in the right mood, he develops his film in warm peper-developer and the results remind one of the golden age of Russian movies - before Moscow discovered Socialist Realism. As a young boy, he used to paint a lot. Now, he goes to exhibitions with his camera. Wasn't it the Camera that forced painters to discover abstract painting? "Maybe I would have painted too." says Alex Agor, "If I had not discovered the camera first” - Mihael Ohad (1968)