Israeli art takes on the October 7 tragedy

WAR DECORATIONS – This is the name given to a new exhibition of paintings by Tal Mazliach now showing at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Curated by Amit Shemma, the works will be shown until Saturday, January 11.

Born and raised at kibbutz Kfar Aza, the series reflects Mazliach’s trauma of spending 20 hours in hiding during the October 7 Hamas attack until she was rescued by the IDF. The painted canvases display a rich, and highly personal, visual language that combines words, color, and an almost-suffocating wealth of tiny details that hold our attention as we attempt to decipher it.

Addicted to drinking coffee and smoking, Mazliach snuck out of the safe room in her house to the kitchen to bring in the coffee maker, Shemma shared with the press during a guided tour of the exhibition.

She was too terrified to light her cigarettes, fearing Hamas terrorists would notice the smoke. During these terrible hours, she clung to her phone as the only way to reach the outside world. Shemma said that a trilingual exhibition poster (in Hebrew, Arabic and English) will be available for visitors with a full glossary of the terms she used in the paintings.

Mazliach has used the theme of decorations since the late 1990s, winning the Rappaport Prize in 2009, among many others. The result of that award was the 2010 exhibition The Concept Has Gone for a Walk, also held at Tel Aviv Museum of Art, curated by Efrat Livny.

Noting the tendency to label Mazliach’s works as outsider art, Smadar Sheffi said that this label might say more about us, the audience, than about Mazliach, who studied art at the Kalisher School and ran its gallery.

In other words, her disinterest in expanding on concepts and her focus on painting an inner-language does not automatically translate into unthinking paintings, or that her artistic role is to be an antenna-like organism responding to an invisible frequency. These works might be complex, demanding even, but they very much offer an emotional experience hailing from the inside – both of Israeli society that is now reaching the one-year mark of an ongoing war, and the specific pain of those living on the Gaza Border during the horrific terror attack.

A LARGE painting by Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi, depicting women running away from the site of the Supernova massacre, will be shown at the museum’s Israeli Art collection. A selection from the art collection of French-Jewish producer Arthur Essebag will be shown as well in I Don’t Want to Forget. Curated by Marie Shek, it will be on display until Saturday, December 14.

Although the commitment Essebag made towards the Israeli art community during a time when its members are attacked by a tidal wave of hatred and cancellations is commendable, not all works on display offer a meaningful experience. October 2023 by Sigalit Landau – a bronze statue of a woman holding a body with skulls scattered around her – seems like an example of how even a usually great artist like Landau may, at times, miss the mark.

Hebrew guided daily tours of the exhibitions are offered during the Days of Awe series. Tuesday through Thursday, October 8 to 10, at 11:30 a.m. NIS 55 per ticket. 27 Shaul HaMelech Blvd. Call (03) 607-7020 to book.

KIBBUTZ HAZOREA

WHEN THINGS FALL APART is the title of a best-selling 1996 self-help book by Pema Chödrön, a US-born ordained monk within the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. It is also the title of a new exhibition curated by Shir Meller-Yamaguchi at the Wilfrid Israel Museum, a group exhibition with works by Mai Daas, Eram Aghbarih, Chanan de Lange, Yael Barlev and others.

Maid Dass offers Sujud (Prostration), a hyper-realistic painting in which a group of women lay exhausted on the floor. In Virtual Reality, Barlev created a collection of suspended, cocoon-like structures with tiny figures or objects hidden inside. One is of a two-headed monster laying in a dark well, unable to get out because the ladder is broken; another is a beheaded black monster, not unlike the Monster public sculpture by Niki de Saint Phalle at Gan HaYuvel Jerusalem.

BREATH IS explored in two exceptionally good works. In It Is Ongoing, Aghbarih presents a filmed performance in which she uses a straw to blow air into a bowel filled with soap. The foam and bubbles rise from the container, eventually spilling onto the floor and “painting” a white canvas.

In So it Goes, de Lange created a hypnotic movement of a suspended glass bubble that has tiny currents of air blowing out of it via two small holes. As the glass bubble hovers over a surface of black sand, the air flow blows the grains out of the way. It is a very soothing experience to sit in the quiet, dark space and watch this seemingly endless process.

When Things Fall Apart – NIS 30 per ticket. Opening hours Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. except Tuesdays from noon to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. No end date listed. Call (04) 989-9566 for more.

KIBBUTZ YAD MORDECHAI

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8 – Attend the opening of The Sun Did Not Stand Still, a group exhibition with works by Ori Gersht, Shai Azoulay, Eyal Assulin and many others (patrons will be able to purchase the works) curated by Shlomit Oren and Lilach Shmoul and shown until Saturday, October 26, at the kibbutz carpentry shop.

The concept here is a reversal of the norm. If, until now, artists from central Israel hosted evacuated artists – as in Be’eri Gallery finding a new home in Tel Aviv’s Beit Romano – now artists near the Gaza Border host artists from Israel’s center. Ester Rada will sing during the opening night and guests will hear opening remarks by Benny Gantz – the kibbutz’s latest resident who supported this exhibition.

6 p.m. Admission is free. Opening hours are Sunday to Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Visit https://sunneverstands.co.il/ for more details. Sign up for the opening event here: https://sunneverstands.forms-wizard.biz/.

ART NEWS

AUSTRIA – Soviet-born Israeli painter Alexander Okun is now showing his massive four meter-tall painting Gates of Justice – inspired by Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem and his time there, with its thirteen characters of patients – at the Albertina museum until Sunday, January 5.

Displayed alongside works by Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Marie-Jo Lafontaine at the Albertina Klosterneuburg (north of Vienna), this is an unusual example of art from the capital being recognized and appreciated during a time when the Israeli pavilion in Venice is bolted.

Okun, a long time resident of Jerusalem, once joked that curators are more important than God almighty because God accepts everybody and curators don’t even return phone calls! This is a wonderful opportunity to become familiar with his work.

An der Donau-Au 1. 9 Euro per ticket. Opening hours: Thursday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

JERUSALEM – Jerusalem Design Week came to an end last month after offering a stunning variety of roughly 100 works plus guided tours, performances, and events.

Co-curated by Dana BenShalom and Sofiya Olitsky, the selected theme of The Ark allowed the respective artists and designers to explore how to respond to an age of seemingly never ending crises.

One sound-work at the Hansen House Tea Pavilion, Thetys by Zohar Elmakias, Ytav Boushira, Eli Keller and Nadav Spiegel, invited guests to sit in the cool evening air and listen to imaginary personal histories of those living in an unnamed country slowly bleeding out jobs, people, and hope until it becomes the sort of place where zookeepers end up killing the beloved animals they once looked after due to their inability to feed them.

As the night fell and respective visitors explored the rich program offered, it seemed like a tip of the hat is in order to all those hard at work offering perspectives a little more thought-out than those we are offered on the evening news.

Art Roundup is a monthly glance at some of the finest art exhibitions and events currently shown across the country. Artists, curators, and collectors are welcome to send pitches to hagayhacohen@yahoo.com with “Art Roundup” in the email subject.