Tel Aviv’s Urbanik Gallery today hosted the opening of a one-man show, Art Is the Eye Of the Soul, by photographer, gallery proprietor and recent new immigrant to Israel, Daniel Siboni. In the commercial sphere, Siboni specializes in interior architecture and fashion photography, including covers for Elle and Vogue magazines, ads for the houses of Dior, Chanel, Christian Lacroix, Christian Audigier and many more.
Siboni’s non-commercial, fine art photography — which has been shown in London’s National Portrait Gallery, Art Basel in Miami show, LA’s Melrose Art Gallery and others — presents the other side of fashion: the part where the printed page fades, gets torn and worn, and graffitied over. Whether in New York, Los Angeles, Paris or Tel Aviv, the images are strikingly similar… yet each reflects the energy of their specific locale.
Born in Morocco and raised in Paris, Siboni’s roots in photography go back three generations. His grandfather, David Dahan, was a photographer first in Morocco and then in Israel.
Along with being a working photographer, Siboni teaches fashion photography. In 2011, he opened Studio on 3rd in Los Angeles, a creative space dedicated to fashion and urban photography. In that same spirit, together with fellow Frenchman Henry Chikly, he has now launched Urbanik in Tel Aviv’s Florentine district.
The neighborhood, with its mix of light industry and workshops, pubs, cafes and clubs, populated by old-timers and trendy hipsters, clearly provides him with plenty of material.
Siboni states, “I walk in major cities, I shoot its streets, sidewalks, walls, stores windows, billboard, magazines cover news stand… anything that capture a moment, the present.”
“The juxtaposition and clash of big cities architecture, street art, fashion and advertising over-exposing our modern icons creates a global urban art that reflects our time.”
Urbanik Gallery is located at 15 Hatzerim St., Tel Aviv. The show, Art Is the Eye Of the Soul, featuring images New York, LA and Paris, as well as good old Tel Aviv, runs through September 1.
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