In the cluster of winter exhibitions that opened this week at the Herzliya Museum of Art, Dr. Aya Luria, the director of the museum and chief curator, chose to combine this time, between the different periods of genres in art in Israel. The common theme between all the exhibitions is dealing with paper.
Five exhibitions are presented in the museum: an exhibition by Aviva Uri from the collection of his son Caleb and his treasures, an exhibition by the young artist Rotem Amitsur, curated by the artist Ido Markus, an exhibition by Ivan Shovel, curated by the artist Uri Dromer and Aya Luria, and a large exhibition called “On the Voice of Hod”, curated by the artist Ben Hagari
On the voice of a sharp: a group exhibition
Ben Hagari’s main exhibition, “On the Voice of a Hud”, presents 26 artists, most of them international, from the collection of the Print Center of Columbia University in New York, where Hagari teaches animation from the old generation, with pencil, brush and photography. This is actually an academic research exhibition dealing with the subject, which is also part of Hagary’s own artistic practice, who even presents some of his works in the exhibition. In the exhibited works, the drawing that becomes movement is emphasized, with a shadow theater display or an animation created by scrolling. The exhibition features a fascinating selection of works by historical and contemporary international artists, who present etchings, collages, engravings, moving books, peephole theaters (peep shows), Silhouettes, films, contemporary prints, new animation and video works alongside historical works from archives and collections.
Artists: David UltmaidJames Stewart Blackton, Joan Jonas, Jasper Johns, Elliott Green, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Ben Hagary, Thomas W-Daniel, Kara Walker, Terry Winters, George Luz Weinberg, Sarah Zee, Rirkrit Tiravanit, Len Lay, Ofra Lapid, Dr. Lekra, Luther Magndorfer, Jonas Makas, Shazia Sikander, Kiki Smith, Aki Sasamoto, Buckminster Fuller, William Kentridge, John Kessler, Lotta Reiniger, Dasha Shishkin
curator: Ben Hagari Assistant to the treasurer: Ofra Lapid
Rotem Amitzur: The Flat Land
At the entrance to the museum, huge colorful works full of details are displayed. This is a monumental project that started with a chance meeting of the young artist Rotem Amitzur With a small, faded reproduction of one plate out of nine, in a famous painting by the Renaissance artist Andrea Mantania, The triumphal procession of Julius Caesar (1484-92). Following that meeting, Amitzur created countless interpretations of the structure of the painting in strong and vibrant colors, using a technique that combines painting and collage. According to the artist, “the project does not seek to explore the painting and does not seek to imitate or copy it, but to reveal the axes at its base, its roots, and from them to build another melody.” Amitzur uses plain white paper in her works, which she paints with an industrial color, which serves as a basis for a variety of actions. The exhibition is the result of an ongoing dialogue between Amitzur and the curator, the artist Ido Marcus. The two have been working for the past decade as part of a collective of creators in Haifa.
curator: Ido Marcus
Ivan Schwebel: FSP Free-Standing Painting Free standing painting
Ivan Schwebel was a fascinating inspiration for my artwork and we even arranged to meet and talk about his work. Shortly before the time Schwabel passed away and they were left with his impressive works which have now received a respectable exposure in the large space of the museum.
Shovel was born and raised in the United States. After wandering between Kyoto, Paris, New York, Athens, Cordoba, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, he chose to settle in 1963 in Ein Kerem in Jerusalem. In the 1970s, his works were shown, among others, in exhibitions at the Israel Museum, the Tel Aviv Museum and the Art House, Ein Harod. His talent was immediately recognized, but gradually he found himself working outside the main artistic circles and his frustration intensified.
Shovel was a total artist for whom painting is an existential necessity. Schwabel’s work diaries, presented in the exhibition, document his work processes, as “story boards”, and reveal cinematic thinking, dynamic comics aesthetics and elements of American culture.
Shovel testified that for him the canvas is like a cinematic screen that allows the impossible to happen. He often painted large curtains on the sides of the canvas, like in an old movie theater, delimiting the imagined space. Many of his oil paintings were painted on paper or etchings of urban or natural landscape scenes, such as painted backdrops.
In his works, images from current events appear alongside episodes from Jewish history, images from old documentaries and photographs from the Holocaust era of humiliated Jewish figures and Nazi soldiers, alongside images representing the deportation of the Jews of Spain through the grotesque figures of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (a possible reference to the cinema of Fellini, whom he admired).
In the FSP project – a free-standing painting from the seventies of the twentieth century, Shovel built walls and placed them in different places in Israel. The walls, which were supposed to serve as a substrate for landscape paintings, seem in retrospect to be “drive-in” screens that stand alone in the space, planted in a place and at the same time alien and distinct from it. Schwebel envisioned a similar project throughout New York City as well, as can be seen from a series he conceived at that time in which images of an urban collage connect photography and painting. These plans, which were not realized, bring to mind the rhetoric of billboards and teach about the strong connection that Shovel created between everyday life and the street and between art.
Shared curation: Dr. Aya Luria and Uri Dromer
The exhibition was made possible thanks to close cooperation with the artist’s family.
Aviva Uri: The power of fate – works from the collection of his son Caleb
Aviva Uri, a painter who received honorable recognition throughout her creative life, receives another turn in the display of works housed by a collector. Aviva Uri passed away on September 1, 1989. During her lifetime, her works were exhibited in the best galleries and almost all museums in Israel.
Aviva Uri’s exhibition, “Force of Fate”, was curated by the researcher and collector Benno Caleb from her works in his collection. For years, Caleb collected a collection containing the best works of the modern female artists who worked in Israel. The marital relationship between Uri and David Handler is expressed in the exhibition through Hendler’s drawings and love notes and day-to-day exchange between them. The exhibition also includes two works from the collection of the Herzliya Museum, the contribution of the late curator Yona Fisher, alongside portrait photographs of Aviva Uri that were recorded by the artist hand of the photographer Avraham Chai.
curator: built a dog
locking: 20.5.23
Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art 4 Habanim St., Herzliya