Social Housing Blocks in Upper Nazareth

Born in Jerusalem, Amiram Erev is an Israeli photographer noted for documenting the early years of the state. Erev’s photographs are both aesthetically modern and tied intimately to the national narrative of Israel through his focus on Zionist building and development efforts. Many of his works were commissioned, and almost his entire oeuvre was shot in black and white, adding to his photographs’ modernist appeal. Erev took numerous photographs of new housing projects and infrastructure development plans, demonstrating his ideological commitment to the Zionist idea. Shooting in a stark, directly documentary style, Erev introduces little of his own critical or personal perspective. Nonetheless, in many of his images, Erev glorifies both the landscape and those who labored to transform it.