2024-01-08 08:48:42
A sunny day in Tel Aviv, artists Noa Ironic and Zoya Cherkassy-Nnadi are sitting in Cherkassy’s studio. We are surrounded by art, paintings and brushes everywhere, behind Cherkassy there is something that looks like a Soviet flag, a hammer and sickle. Zoya Cherkassy immigrated to Israel from Ukraine with her family many years ago. She is internationally successful as an artist; her art revolves a lot around her childhood memories from the Soviet Union. After October 7th, she began to process the horror in her pictures. Noa Ironic, the younger of the two, was born in Israel. Her works of art show hermetic scenes, dumb-looking, cartoonishly muscular men, players, beach scenes, horse racing. Ironic, who comes from an Orthodox family and officially gave up her family name when she was a teenager, currently lives in the USA, where she is doing her master’s degree.
Mirna Funk: How did you experience October 7th?
Noa Ironic: I heard it on my smartphone. It was eleven o’clock at night, I was at home, but because of the time difference it was seven hours earlier for me. At first I thought it was being exaggerated. Then a friend sent me a link to the Hamas Telegram channel. She wanted to know if I recognized our mutual friend, Eliya Cohen. It was Elijah. He’s still there. They kidnapped him from the party.
Zoya Cherkassy-Nnadi: On the morning of October 7th I was at home, I had visitors from Saint Petersburg. The alarm woke us up. At first I thought it was something regular.
Funk: There was a rocket alarm in Tel Aviv?
Cherkassy-Nnadi: Yes, there was already firing on Tel Aviv. My guests said that terrorists go from house to house, killing people. I said: This is your Russian fake news. I thought that if something like that happened, it wouldn’t take a second for the army to get there. I was surprised that this was possible.
Ironic: I think the terrorists were surprised too.
Cherkassy-Nnadi: My daughter is very afraid of siren alarms, she then starts shaking. Nobody knew what was going on, so I decided to take her to Germany. We were already in Munich on October 9th.
Noa Ironic was born in Israel in 1993
Those: Instagram/ironic.no
Funk: You then went on to Berlin. Were you able to work?
Cherkassy-Nnadi: Yes. It’s easy for me to get a small studio no matter where I am.
Funk: And what was your environment like, Noa?
Ironic: The American students around me were confused and worried. But they just didn’t know what to say to me. They tried to support me, but the situation was just too difficult.
Funk: There was probably little condolence from the art world, as there was some celebration of what happened. Does this have any immediate consequences for you as Israeli artists?
Cherkassy-Nnadi: I think many exhibition organizers are afraid to work with Israelis.
Ironic: It only became more visible after October 7th. Before October 7th, galleries wrote to me: We really like your work, please send us your CV. And then I send my resume, and then all of a sudden they say, oh my God, we’re so sorry, but we’re full until the end of 2025.
Painted by Noa Ironic
Those: Instagram/ironic.no
Cherkassy-Nnadi: It happened to me at an exhibition in Germany. I took part in a project by an Israeli artist group. The gallery was supposed to sign an open letter condemning Israel. The curator was uncomfortable with it. So she wrote us a letter. The institution demanded it.
Ironic: Something happened to me recently with a curator. She had a very Israeli name. After an artist talk, I said to her in Hebrew, “Hey, how are you?” and she gave me the nastiest look I’ve ever seen. She just looked at me, said “Yes, yes…” and moved on. She was so mad that I outed her.
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Funk: In the last 15 years, art has become very political.
Cherkassy-Nnadi: People laugh at Soviet art and call it “propaganda,” but what about contemporary political art? She’s even worse. At least Soviet art was good.
Ironic: People are so comfortable. In the end, her art just flatters some white people.
Cherkassy-Nnadi: It’s art for white people.
Zoya Cherkassky was born in Kiev in 1976 and moved to Israel with her family in 1991
Quelle: Courtesy of Fort Gansevoort/Tony Wang
Ironic: Why is Israel so important to you? I don’t understand why this is so important to them. Of course I don’t think you should be heartless – but it’s just a very high level of concern.
Cherkassy-Nnadi: I don’t think they’re affected that much, it’s just the current manifestation of conformism.
Funk: When were you able to work again after the massacre, Zoya?
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Cherkassy-Nnadi: I have a lot of experience with being in shock. A little over a year ago I woke up in the same way to Kiev being bombed. My sister and nieces live there. I didn’t want to believe that it was really happening. Then I turned on the news. The first thing I see is people getting killed in my neighborhood. I call my family, they say: If bombs come, just go down one floor. And then you look at the pictures of houses, more than half of which are missing. Then I really panicked. When I panic, I have to paint. It reminds me of who I am. Same this time: I painted a lot of pictures straight away, twelve pictures in the first two weeks. When they went viral, I stopped.
Ironic: Can we talk about how many people made art for October 7th? Because they wanted to jump on the exhibition wagon? That’s so cynical.
Cherkassy-Nnadi: I don’t know, I don’t think I can say it like that, I can’t tell from the pictures who made it to be exhibited and who because they are really affected.
Ironic: I think my generation just has this very strong tendency towards monetization. I saw how many pictures were created at once and just thought to myself: Okay…
Cherkassy-Nnadi: It’s natural to respond to things like this by creating art.
Gemalt von Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi
Source: Instagram/cherkassky
Funk: Noa, how were you? Could you paint?
Ironic: I was in my studio 24/7, just like Zoya said: it’s just the best way to keep yourself busy. But I don’t usually deal with reality at all in my work.
Cherkassy-Nnadi: What you do has a lot to do with reality.
Ironic: It’s based on her, but the relationships with her are different. Most people moved in a collective direction after October 7th, my work shifted to a very personal place.
Funk: How do you feel today, after three months, where do you place yourself emotionally in the situation?
Ironic: Dead inside, I would say. I only cried once in all that time. That was because so much happened: another funeral and another funeral. I don’t think I can process this, my brain just shut down.
Funk: What about the future of art?
Cherkassy-Nnadi: Art is dead.
Ironic: It’s so full of propaganda, at least on the Soviet Union level of propaganda.
Cherkassy-Nnadi: Worse!
Ironic: Yes, worse. Because it is global.
Cherkassy-Nnadi: And because Soviet propaganda art did not pretend to be free
Ironic: Being an Israeli artist has always been difficult. Those of us who succeed usually hide our identities or make political art that is very critical of Israel. In both cases we are pressed into clichés. That’s sad, and I think a lot of artists feel that way in the age of identity politics.
Zoya Cherkassky was born in Kiev in 1976 and moved to Israel with her family in 1991 – two weeks before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In her paintings she often mixes borrowings from the socialist realism of her childhood with current socio-political issues. She has already dealt with the war in Ukraine in her painting. She has reached many people with the pictures she has published on her Instagram channel since the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7th.
Noa Ironic was born in Israel in 1993 and is now completing a master’s program in Providence, USA. Ironic comes from a Jewish Orthodox family and attended one Girls’ school. Her mother is a stained glass painter. After her parents separated, Ironic broke with religion and had her family name changed to “Ironic”. She studied art at Shenkar College in Ramat Gan. Israeli and international galleries show her works and she has received numerous awards.
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In order to display embedded content, your revocable consent to the transmission and processing of personal data is necessary, as the providers of the embedded content require this consent as third party providers [In diesem Zusammenhang können auch Nutzungsprofile (u.a. auf Basis von Cookie-IDs) gebildet und angereichert werden, auch außerhalb des EWR]. By setting the switch to “on”, you agree to this (revocable at any time). This also includes your consent to the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. You can find more information about this. You can revoke your consent at any time using the switch and privacy at the bottom of the page.
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