Photographer Adi Nes was born to Iranian-Jewish refugee parents in Kiryat Gat, Israel in 1966 and studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design between 1989-1992. He is the recipient of a number of awards and prizes including the Sandra Jacobs Scholarship for Documentary in London (1993), the Nathan Gottesdiener Foundation Israeli Art Prize, Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2000), and The Constantiner Photographer Award for an Israeli Artist, Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2003). He has had solo exhibitions at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego in the USA, the Melkweg Gallery in Amsterdam, and Ben Uri Gallery in London. His work has also been included in group exhibitions at the Hotel de Sully in Paris, Haifa Museum of Art, Israel and the Jewish Museum in New York. Nes is openly gay and has gained international recognition for the bold and emotive way in which his photography confronts controversial issues including challenging traditional notions of masculinity and homosexuality, as well as highlighting the plight of the destitute and economically marginalized.
Nes frequently draws upon classical and religious stories to launch critical examinations of contemporary society, the nation-state, and identity; themes which are apparent in Untitled (The Last Supper) from 1999. Nes has stated that his decision not to title his works stems from a desire to enable the viewer to form their own understandings. Yet in the 2006 Biblical Stories series, by invoking Old Testament figures and narratives, such as the story of Cain and Abel, transposed into scenes of contemporary suffering and squalor, he acknowledges not only the timelessness of these stories but also society's continuing failure to adequately recognize and address the issues they raise. In his theatrical use of light and shadow and the framing of his compositions, he also consciously echoes the old masters, such as Caravaggio and Rubens. Adi Nes lives and works in Israel.
