Tel Aviv Art Guide - October

This month’s recommendations are all about exhibitions taking place in new venues which are now flourishing in Tel Aviv. Experimental, untraditional and artists-run galleries are the highlight of this fall.

I.
  
Exhibition: Targishu BeNoah
Artists: Various artists, Gil Yefman, Kher Fody, Galia Uri
Curator: Iris Simhony
Venue: Gallery 4, Florentin
Dates: Until November 4th, 2017 

Gil Yefamn is one of my favorite contemporary artists today. His colorful eccentric works deal with gender, memory, the holocaust and basically all which is usually treated as marginal. In this exhibition he collaborates with artist Kher Fodi from Acco and his art students. They have created an installation made of trash found in the streets of the northern city and created a work that relates to the asylum seekers situation today.

II.

Exhibition title: You could have come by elephant
Artist: Liron Cohen
Venue: Mars
Dates: Currently Open

Mars is a new gallery based in a design studio in Jaffa. It's defined as "a place for artworks, books, magazines, fashion, jewels and thoughts that wrap them all together or lay in the spaces between them.” The first exhibition in this space will be of the talented illustrator Liron Cohen which weaves together classic modernism and contemporary art.

III.

Exhibition: First Light
Artists: Various Artists
Curators: Hagit Peleg Rotem and Yuval Saar
Venue: Old Jaffa street gallery
Dates: Until October 31, 2017

This exhibition inaugurates the new city gallery in the alleyways of old Jaffa – an open gallery displayed in light boxes. The first exhibition is dedicated to the best works presented in this year’s graduation exhibitions in the various art and design academies in Israel. 60 works have been chosen by the curators and as a whole this is a colorful, insightful and promising exhibition.

Take a tour with Shani in Tel Aviv to discover more!

The Chilling Polarities of Louise Bourgeois

“It is not an image I am seeking. It’s not an idea. It is an emotion you want to recreate, an emotion of wanting, of giving and of destroying” - Louise Bourgeois

What is the essential link between mother and child, between self and other, between independence and interdependence, between copulation and creation, between the literal and the figurative? These are just some of the questions posed in the inaugural show of French-American artist Louise Bourgeois's work in Israel, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The exhibition “Twosome”, jointly curated by Jerry Gorovoy and Suzanne Landau, emphasizes the duality in Louise Bourgeois's work. Bourgeois struggled with bouts of depression throughout her life which is reflected in the pieces selected for the show. The exhibition contains themes of displacement, abandonment, and anxiety, sentiments that permeated her powerful, and at times, chilling oeuvre.  

Twosome, which features over 50 works, presents a highly personal connection between the artist and her work. The art of Bourgeois is autobiographical and cannot be separated from her lived experiences. She, herself, said “my sculpture is my body”. Louise Bourgeois's somatic fascination is a strong motif throughout the exhibition. The human body, and primarily the female form, is used as a catalyst with which to explore motherhood, abandonment, love, and fear.      

Louise Bourgeois with a fabric sculpture in progress in 2009.
Photo: © Alex Van Gelder / Art: © The Easton Foundation

Louise Bourgeois’s had an acute awareness of the relationship between the self and others. In her consideration of relationships the artist created dialogues between contradictory concepts, such as; the conscious and unconscious, mother and child, male and female. Filial relationships are considered in both small and large scale works. Intimate pieces such as Umbilical Cord (2003) and The Birth (2007) portray the intense vulnerability Bourgeois experienced throughout her life.  A display of 17 of these smaller works, in a variety of mediums, is expertly juxtaposed with a series of installations meant to serve as confessionals.  

The exhibition's namesake piece, Twosome (1991) is a unique work for Louise Bourgeois because of its scale and industrial aesthetic. Despite its hulking presence, Twosome maintains the alluring intimacy of her smaller works. This sculptural installation is a powerful culmination of Louise Bourgeois's exploration of the complex relationship between mother and child. While the work is up for interpretation it is near impossible not to feel a maternal bond existing between the the two tanks as one perpetually moves in and out of the other, with a metal chain serving as an umbilical cord to connect them and a red light pulsing from within the steel sculpture, giving it a sense of life.    

Louise Bourgeois
SPIDER COUPLE, 2003
Steel
228.6 x 360.7 x 365.8 cm.
Private Collection
Photo: Christopher Burke, (c) The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, NY

While Twosome is predominantly concerned with Louise Bourgeois's relationship with her parents (Spider Couple, 2003) and then her own children, it does not neglect her reflections on romantic relationships. There is a morbid romanticism to her work that is best embodied by Couples (2003). This large sculpture fabricated in cast aluminum is perilously suspended from the gallery’s ceiling by a single string, leaving the warped lovers in a tragic free fall. The shiny exterior of Couple belies its darker purpose as a cathartic exploration of the artist’s lifelong fear of abandonment.     

Louise Bourgeois
THE COUPLE, 2003
Aluminum, hanging piece
365.1 x 200 x 109.9 cm.
Collection The Easton Foundation
Photo: Christopher Burke, (c) The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, NY

The figurative language used by Louise Bourgeois explores the darker side of human existence through psychoanalysis, metaphor, confession, and more. An overarching theme of duality defines this psychologically charged exhibition which will challenge viewers perception of relationships, while using polarities, to remind them that even from despair can come great beauty. The strongest element of this exhibition lies within its perceptive curatorial team and specifically, Jerry Gorovoy, who worked as an assistant to Bourgeois from the 1980s until her death in 2010. Gorovoy has conceded that working with Bourgeois could be pathological; nevertheless he remains adamant about her prowess and dexterity both as an artist and human being. 
  
Twosome is open at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art from September 7, 2017 to January 8, 2018, while a complimentary exhibition of Louise Bourgeois prints Pink Days / Blue Days is on view at Gordon Gallery from through October 28, 2017.  We highly recommend checking out both shows during this exciting moment in the Tel Aviv art scene. 

Louise Bourgeois in her home studio in 1974.
Photo: Mark Setteducati, © The Easton Foundation

Header Image: 
Louise Bourgeois
TWOSOME, 1991
Steel, paint and electric light
190.5 x 193 x 1244.6 cm.
Collection The Easton Foundation
Photo: Peter Bellamy, © The Easton Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, NY

Tel Aviv Art Guide - July

July is not the peak of our Israeli summer but temperatures can get quite high and so this month’s recommendations are all about museums. Chilled and quiet, they might be the best way to pass your days. 
 
  
Exhibition title: Woven and Untangled - New Video Works in the Museum Collection
Artist/s: Group exhibition
Venue: Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavillon
Dates: Until 28 October 2017 

The Helena Rubinstein Pavilion is one of the most beautiful Modern buildings in Tel Aviv, having the ability to change itself completely for each exhibition. This time it has been turned into a cinema hall for presenting a Video Art only show. This exhibition is a great way of get acquainted with young Israeli Video Art, dealing with various political issues such as gender, immigration tensioned histories and more. 
 

Mika Hazan Bloom at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art

Exhibition title: The Kids Want Communism 
Artist/s: Max Epstein, Toy Boy, Jonathan Gold, Tal Gafni, Matti Lahat
Venue: Moby Museum of Bat Yam
Dates: From 22 June, 2017  

This is part three of a trilogy dedicated to the communist manifest published 99 years ago. Socialist questions are rising up again due to difficult economic atmosphere in Israel and around the globe. It is fascinating to see how young multi-disciplinary artists react to this situation.    

Tamar Nissim at MoBY

Exhibition title: Escape Room
Artists: Shahar Afek, Dorian Gottlieb, Eden Hevroni, Efrat Hakimi, Niv Cohen, Gili Lavy, Dor Zlekha Levy, Guy Nissenhaus, Chen Serfaty, Tal Rosen, Iris Chetritt
Venue: Nahum Gutman Museum
Dates: Until 2 September, 2017


This great exhibition portrays the works of some of Israel art scene’s intriguing new voices. Inspired by popular Escape Room games every work in the show functions as a clue and the whole exhibition is a quest to be solved by the viewers. If you get to the museum, don’t skip Gutman’s paintings exhibited in the second floor.   

Tal Rosen, 'When we strike roots', Nahum Gutman Museum


Header Image: The Kids Want Communism - MoBY, Bat Yam

- by Shani Werner (Talking Art)

TLV Urban Art Guide - June

June brings heat to the streets of Tel Aviv, and the urban art scene is heating up as well!


Work: Nitzan Mintz and Dede Ad Takeover
Area: Corner of Lincoln and Yehuda Ha-Levi Street.


Introducing a new medium, relatively unused in the streets of Tel Aviv, especially in a scale like this; Nitzan Mintz and Dede take over two huge ad spaces in central Tel Aviv. Nitzan introduced a known poem of hers in a very big scale. Notice that each of the letters was finished by hand. Dede pushed the envelope with a supposedly nude model (it's our beloved gallery tour guide Tali Kayam!) covered with his famous bandaids. Could this be a new series? We hope so!

Nitzan Mintz

DEDE

Work: Tel Aviv Proud stencils
Area: Florentin Neighborhood.


Just in time for the best event in town during June – Tel Aviv Pride parade – here is a selection of some proud stencils that can be found in Florentin neighborhood.

Work: New piece by urban artist Ame 72
Area: Abarbanel Street, Florentin Neighborhood.


Ame 72 is a known artist in the streets of Tel Aviv. He also recently had his work exhibited in the ZK Gallery in San Francisco. A very fresh piece of his can be found on Abarbanel street, this one addresses the issue of global warming, which is very appropriate for our global conditions and the local weather getting hotter and hotter this time of year.

- by Cobi Krieger