Gérard Allon

Gérard Allon is an Israeli-French visual artist. He has participated in defining the important shifts that occurred in the field of Israeli photography in the dramatic decade following the Yom Kippur War. A retrospective gaze at his works reveals a highly skilled professional, who succeeded in capturing the social energies of this tumultuous period, drawing the artistic realm closer to the popular and the commercial realm closer to the social. Allon consolidated a new professional approach to the medium of the record-album cover and worked as a fashion photographer and as the in-house photographer of Habima Theater. At the same time, he created personal works that expanded the limits of local photography. He also transmitted his knowledge to his students in the department of visual communications at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem (1999–2017), as well as at Camera Obscura in Tel Aviv (2000–2001) and at the Holon Institute of Technology (2001–2002). Allon is concerned with documentary photography, yet his work always reveals a desire to highlight social injustices while leaving room for change, which is in the hands of the works’ viewers. As far as the visual documentation of local theater is concerned, Allon clearly impacted Israeli culture, and his complex gaze has been inflected by the possible cultures he moved among over the years – the double gaze of a foreign immigrant watching from the sidelines, as well as that of an Israeli who acts to impact the local landscape. The professional and technical innovations he introduced into the fields of pop music, theater, and visual art cast him as a groundbreaking figure, who has exerted his influence on his students in various schools.