Artist Avner Sher’s new exhibit ‘For Ever’ opens at the Jaffa Museum

Avner Sher’s new exhibition “For Ever,” which will be opening at the Jaffa Museum on Thursday, features contemporary aesthetics fused with the artist’s love for history and maps, with a special dedication to Jaffa. 

“Instead of paint, I sometimes use red kiddush wine – awful in taste but great in giving the desired color,” said the Israeli architect and artist. 

All the installations at the show are dominated by colors: red, white, black, and brown. 

Crucial to Sher is the process of preparation and research. His methodology, he relates, is similar to the approach of an archaeologist.

“My work is reminiscent of archaeological work. I discovered entirely new stories, going back to the times of Yeffet, the son of Noah. I understood that I am going in my [artistic] work through the layers of the history of our country. Here [in Jaffa], there are even deeper stories to discover,” he said. But he stresses: “This is an art exhibition, not an archaeological show.”

The artist is fascinated by elements found on the streets of Jaffa, and by the Latin concept of “Spolia” – a secondary use of elements from destroyed buildings and constructions, which appear in his earlier works. But, surprisingly, he explains the concept by referring to Holocaust: “Like they used to build in Europe, using Jewish properties,” he said. 

When talking to Sher, who lost his mother early in his life and was raised as an only child by his father, the shadow of the Holocaust is indirectly present in his work. He points at a wooden owl he came across at the flea market and placed her in between his installations. “I was raised by a Holocaust survivor, [as a child he didn’t have any relatives]. I could not leave her alone,” he explains.

Born in 1951 in Haifa, Sher wanted to study art, but his father insisted that he acquire a profession. So the young Sher, conflicted but understanding his father’s reasons, studied architecture and urban planning, graduating in 1978 with honors from Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. 

Architectural firm

He established his own architectural firm and has been successful in this field, designing, for example, many shopping malls in Israel. But he never gave up on art and went on to study it at the University of Haifa. 

Over the years, he developed his original style, creating installations on cork and using atypical techniques and mediums, such as wine and iodine, which purposely ages his works. 

Sher often scratches, and sometimes even burns the surface of his work. In his unusual approach, he uses also a wood-scorching pen, hammers, and screwdrivers, creating unique effects.

At “For Ever,” viewers can see Sher’s older works as well as pieces that were specially created for this show, which focus on the specifics of Jaffa’s history and myths. “When I began to work on the current exhibition about a year and a half ago, my biggest surprise was that the history of Jaffa is much deeper than what I knew before,” he said.

The exhibit’s curator, Yuval Saar, added: “Sher presents the local gentrification processes and a reflection of the hybridization between the material culture of the Tower of Babel and Andromeda’s Rock. It is also a portrait – the cabinet of curiosities of Avner Sher himself as an artist, architect, and maker.” 

Sher’s previous works have been shown all over the world, including at the Jerusalem Biennale and the 2017 Venice Biennale.

The exhibition will be open from September 28 until December 31 at the Jaffa Museum, 10 Mifratz Shlomo Promenade, Jaffa.