The stairs leading to the first floor of the building above the Zimak Gallery in Tel Aviv’s State Square do not reveal what will be revealed at the end. In the bright space, the works of the talented multidisciplinary artist Sharon Bronscher fit together, as if they have always been there and only for them is this new exhibition space, which will be dedicated to Israeli and international design.
Bronscher’s passion, language, vision, creativity and totality are all expressed in the “Rose of Jericho” exhibition, which is a mosaic of her work, combining design, fashion with art and crafts, and merging into a recognizable and clear work.
The decision to open the design gallery alongside the old art gallery is not detached from what is happening in the world. According to its managers, Anat Bar-Noy and Yaron Harmati, many international galleries no longer adhere to the distinction between design and art. To Bronscher, who began her professional career at Charlotte, her art and furniture gallery in Neve Tzedek, is closing a circle: “The Jericho rose is immortal. “It’s my inspiration.”
1 View the gallery
Sharon Bronscher in her exhibition space
( Photo: Yuval Chen)
The result is not something created out of an orderly plan. “It came evolutionarily and erupted. Always, both in my fashion and in spaces it mixes.” Indeed, everything that intrigues her comes to the desktop: wood, stone, iron, paper and textiles. The result unfolds in space: in front of the entrance stands a contemporary work of art that looks like a huge parchment scroll of Ecclesiastes written in minimal Rashi scripture. And on the walls and some of the works are written sentences in the same Rashi scripture, Gidli and Hadassah Tal, who talk about silence, or spectacular pictures she took in the desert with ancient urns next to them. The letters are not always clear and the sentence is clear, on the contrary, sometimes the mind is deceived. “I always had a connection to the Bible, but it started with a need to do something in the beginning. Tabula rasa, to cleanse, to shed, it’s the basic basic biblical passage, it’s not a religious passage, even if there was always a rooted connection.”
There are also texts and writing on fragments of pottery jars, on dressed stones, on huge canvas slabs or on the label of a garment. Bronscher manipulates the material, for example in fabrics used for beanbag pillows that are made of canvas that looks and gives a feeling of thick paper.
She expresses her love of scents in an exhibition in a wall display of bottles wrapped in a material reminiscent of paper pulp and containing all the scents she has ever created; And fashion is displayed in several items with artistic hypocrisy, and a label bearing a biblical text.
Bronscher, 49, studied interior design at Tel Aviv Environmental College and product design studies. Among other things, she designed the first labels of the “soap of yesteryear” chain, was one of the first to open a store in the railway complex in Tel Aviv, and 12 years ago opened a store in the flea market in Jaffa, which reflected her diverse world: from avant-garde clothing items to scents.
It closed its store in Jaffa shortly before the outbreak of the corona. “Suddenly I realized I no longer belonged in the market and announced closure, even though the store worked fine.”
Over the years she has partnered with other ventures such as the “Paper” paper shop where her nostalgic paper designs are sold: unique notebooks, and vintage items belonging to the old world of letters; And a lovely gift shop at the new village nursery in Kfar Azar.
Now she is once again creating furniture and art and grouping all her loves in the exhibition. About a year ago, she also had the opportunity to rent a space in Old Jaffa near the Jaffa Hotel, and despite the uncertainty of the period, she opened a commercial art and furniture gallery there, where she presented her designs. “I wanted a bit to be on the margins after 12 years in the flea market. It was not an easy time,” she admits, “both because of the plague and the unrest in Jaffa, but I was exposed to the crowd there and their reactions that were positive. .
For the past few months she has been working on the exhibition at Zimak. According to her, the corona lit up a spotlight on what to put focus on, and when the closures came, she went back to making art at home. “That’s where it all started,” she points to a wall on which fragments of urns hang. “I have an affair with pottery, with the broken and the whole, because for me the fraction actually functions as a whole as well – this boundary is blurring.”
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