Three artists, three questions: Art in south Tel Aviv and Jaffa

Many Israeli artists have found their place in south Tel Aviv and Jaffa, establishing their studios and galleries there. Art lovers have followed their paths, going from gallery to gallery like pilgrims, especially at the beginning of the Israeli weekend on Thursday night.

This is part of the Tel Aviv culture: taking a sip of wine or arak, discussing art, and moving around the Florentin neighborhood, Old Jaffa, and Kiryat Hamelacha – a post-industrial area that looks like a slum at first sight but is valid in the art scene.

Of course, there are openings in all parts of Tel Aviv, and they are equally attended; but this time, especially for the readers of this “Three Artists, Three Questions” column, I decided to explore new exhibitions in these areas (on less crowded Friday mornings).

Three different artists whose work caught my attention agreed to answer my three questions:

1. What inspires you?
2. What do you call art?
3. What, in your opinion, makes your artwork different from that of other artists?

Simon Adjiashvili

Simon Adjiashvili was born in 1949 in Tbilisi, Georgia (at that time, part of the Soviet Union). He received his MFA from the Tbilisi State Academy of Fine Arts. He began participating in international art shows in the 1980s, starting with the 1982 10th Biennale of Graphic Design at the Moravian Museum in Brno, which was then in Czechoslovakia. In 1990, he moved to Israel and settled in Tel Aviv, where he has been based ever since.

In 1993, he had his first European solo exhibition in Brussels. That was followed by many other international solo and group shows at galleries and museums, including the Israel Museum (Jerusalem), the Ramat Gan Museum of Israeli Art, and galleries all over Israel and Europe, from Paris and Amsterdam through Moscow.

In November of this year, he opened his solo show “Forgotten Room” at the Rothschild Fine Art Gallery in Tel Aviv.

Adjiashvili takes viewers on an intimate journey of space and light, in a titled forgotten room. The exhibition can be viewed as a series of paintings, almost as a chain of puzzles that create one big picture and give insight into the artist’s apartment. Or they can be viewed as separate paintings, each representing a certain moment in time.

He leaves space for reflection and makes the viewer focus on one small element at a time, such as a fruit or a glass. The show gives insight into much more than the artist’s home, creating a general sense of longing.

Inspiration: “‘Inspiration’ is a very beautiful word and, of course, it exists. Inspiration penetrates and touches, arises, and disappears. I know that inspiration can overtake me in unexpected, ordinary situations. For example, I see a glare of sunlight on a wall or hear the sound of flowing water, or sudden silence. But at the same time, it seems appropriate to me to recall the words of Pablo Picasso: ‘Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.’”

Meaning of art: “We lived in a ‘waiting’ mode for almost the entire year. I think that, whether we like it or not, we constantly turn to our inner world. We need awareness and encouragement, and art can provide this. Perhaps art is an ordeal and consolation at the same time.”

Adjiashvili’s art: “If an artist doesn’t look just at current trends or artistic clichés but does something that moves him very deeply, such an artist has a good chance of creating works that distinguish him from others. We cannot depict life in all its diversity, but we have an imagination that gives us no less wealth. We may forget the words or deeds, but we remember for a long time the emotions we experienced. The great Michelangelo Antonioni said, ‘There is nothing in my films, except what you feel.’”

simonadjiashvili.com

Haimi Fenichel

Acclaimed sculptor Haimi Fenichel was born in 1972 in Givatayim and lives in Kfar Saba. He graduated from the Department of Ceramics and Glass Design at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (Jerusalem), participating in many solo and group exhibitions in Israel and Europe. His works are found in various public and private collections, including the Israel Museum.

Fenichel is the recipient of numerous awards, including First Prize at the Alix de Rothschild competition by the Israel Crafts Foundation (2005); the Education and Culture Ministry Young Artist Award (2007); First Prize at the All About Him competition, Goethe-Institut Bulgarien, Sofia (2008); the Education and Culture Ministry Encouragement Award (2014); Encouragement of Creativity Prize of Israel Discount Bank; and Culture Ministry Prize (2017).

Fenichel works in various techniques and materials, including construction materials used in Israeli interiors and urban settings, such as sand, concrete, and terrazzo.

He is completely dedicated to his art projects. As he told me, he can spend years on them, as on the sculptures he presents at his current exhibition, “On the Margins” (a duo-solo exhibition, together with artist Michal Shamir) at the Chelouche Art Gallery in Jaffa.

He worked for 11 years on Swarm, a piece built of 12,000 porcelain casts in the shape of snails. “It began with a single snail that captivated me, and my fascination with the image and symbolism of this animal led the project to evolve, layer upon layer, without any clear vision of its final form,” he said.

Inspiration: “Inspiration is everywhere, all the time – both nothing and everything at once. I find it in the fluff from a clothes dryer, a peeling wall, a perfectly timed word, or a Facebook post that catches both my eye and my heart. Inspiration is a fleeting thought; if not captured quickly and stored somewhere, it vanishes into the endless, intangible sea of unformed ideas.

“For me, inspiration is a kind of pursuit – a heightened awareness, perception, and attentiveness. The true state of creativity isn’t just inspiration itself but a readiness for it: receptivity, hunger, alertness, and openness. An artist should move through the world with eyes wide open and a heart constantly seeking, always on the lookout for that elusive spark called inspiration.”

Meaning of art: “Answering ‘What is art?’ is challenging because it depends on many factors. Each individual’s perspective also matters because there are no fixed, universal criteria. The idea that what appears in professional spaces like museums and galleries is art offers part of the answer, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. The question has been asked for thousands of years, and perhaps it cannot, or should not, be fully answered.

“To me, art’s first essential quality is its emergence into ‘sunlight’ – its existence outside the confines of the studio, computer, stage, or desk. While the creative process can unfold in darkness, art’s presence in the real world begins when it steps into the light, gaining form, content, and meaning.

“In fact, I hope this question is never fully answered. It’s a question worth asking, but it must not be closed with a final answer. Defining art too rigidly would limit its forms and expressions, taking us one step closer to art’s ‘death.’”

Fenichel’s art: “I’m not certain that I’m fundamentally different from other artists, but there are aspects of my process and the content of my work that may set me apart. I consider myself a ‘suicidal’ artist. When I’m deeply invested in a piece, I can shut out the world, sacrificing sleep, working day and night, and spending significant amounts of money with no guarantee of return – driven solely by the need to bring the work to a place of satisfaction.

“Another aspect that perhaps distinguishes my work is my reverence for the handmade. I’m an artist-maker; I believe that my work should ‘pass’ under my hands. I’m driven by a need to break down materials to their essence and recreate them – similar, but never identical. This process of material transformation, which results in something almost the same yet inherently altered, fascinates me. For me, it’s an allegory for the cycle of life itself, with its stages of birth, death, and rebirth.”

haimifenichel.com

Ayelet Amrani Navon

Ayelet Amrani Navon lives and works in Bazra, in central Israel. She was born in Tel Aviv in 1970 to American and Israeli parents and spent her early childhood moving between Pennsylvania and Tel Aviv.

“My whole childhood, I have done art, but as an adult [at first] I wanted something that would provide for my living. I practiced law on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley for 14 years; I have a law degree from Tel Aviv University Law School. In 2004, I moved back to Israel and felt the need to take up art again. I graduated from a four-year program at Basis Art School in Herzliya.”

She became a multimedia artist: “I paint, make sculptures and installations, and experiment with one-on-one performative work, where I engage with one participant at a time.” She has had many solo shows and participated in group exhibitions.

In her current exhibition, “Cyclical Black White Pink Gold” at Tel Aviv’s Maya Gallery, Amrani Navon combines the theme of a piano and a swan, using oil paint on wood, real piano parts, and piano strings. Walking through the exhibition is like discovering elements of a reconstructed piano. The central pink piece of the show recalls an old room screen that is also in the shape of a pianoforte. The artist said it recalls her childhood memories.

Inspiration: “I most often find inspiration looking inward. That is to say, I don’t find it walking the city streets or hiking in nature, but I go into my studio (my ‘laboratory’) and process the things I miss, hurt, and are changing right now. My materials also inspire me. For example, once I made a tincture [oil paint dissolved in turpentine and linseed oil], and the way it dripped and pooled suddenly inspired me to paint migrating swans and the longing for a permanent home.

“Another example is the piano, a symbol of Western propriety and an object that I played under as a child when visiting my maternal grandmother in Pennsylvania. I now buy old pianos, take them apart, and surround myself with their components. Memories and feelings are triggered this way, and they can inspire me to create objects.”

Meaning of art: “A cave person takes coal from the communal fire and conjures up a ceiling full of awe and beauty in the rock. Art is an ongoing inter-human conversation achieved through objects, marks, or gestures that are pleasing, clever, or otherwise stimulating to our senses.

“Personally, my favorite part is this: Since visual art is nonverbal, it can bypass the limitations of language and communicate (or investigate) matters that are otherwise inaccessible. Like, in what ways and why do we recall the memory of others who came before us? Or, what is my body? A really good day in the studio can provide insight.”

Amrani Navon’s art: “I build installations that include a meeting place where I choreograph one-to-one encounters with my audience inside a particular aesthetic context. I wouldn’t say my artwork is different from that of other artists. I’d put it this way: I am the only person in the world, past and present, who can make ‘my artwork’ because it is a product of me, Ayelet, within a certain place and time.

“My art [is influenced] by mixed heritage as the daughter of an American mother who made aliyah and took me back and forth often to her native state of Pennsylvania, but also the daughter of a Yemenite [Israeli] father from a large traditional family where rules were stricter. Through it all, the feeling of perpetual migration originating from my childhood and a longing to find permanent ground. I am also influenced by studying interdisciplinary psychoanalysis.”

ayeletnavon.com   ■