{"id":1181,"date":"2009-08-27T14:27:15","date_gmt":"2009-08-27T21:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=1181"},"modified":"2009-08-27T14:57:29","modified_gmt":"2009-08-27T21:57:29","slug":"israel-museums-second-show-at-mani-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=1181","title":{"rendered":"Israel Museum’s “Second Show” at Mani House"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I don\u2019t like to be led by the nose or told what to think, and when it comes to art \u2013 I know what I like: an experience of the senses. Eschewing the excessively verbal in my artistic adventures, I usually go out of my way to avoid guided tours of galleries and museums, but after spending a morning listening to Amitai Mendelsohn talk about the current exhibit at Mani House, I may reconsider.<\/p>\n

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Mendelsohn is co-curator with Suzanne Landau of \u201cSecond Show: Contemporary Art from the Israeli Museum, Jerusalem.\u201d Part of the continuum of exhibits and events of ARTLV, Tel Aviv \u2013 Yaffo\u2019s international art biennale, the exhibit opened at the Leumi Bank\u2019s Mani House in Tel Aviv this past June and will remain up until the end of November.<\/p>\n

The impact, contrast and placement of Efrat Natan and Tonico Lemons Auad\u2019s sculptures on the first floor are undeniable. As one enters the room, Natan\u2019s \u201cSwing of the Scythe Sculpture\u201d is on the left: a swirl of metal scythes set on a platform against the painted tiles of the floor. On the right is Tonico Lemos Auad\u2019s \u201cBeira da mar\/The Shallows\u201d a soft life-sized boat made of cloth and thread in a m\u00e9lange of muted gray tones shot with delicate veins of bright thread, set on gray linoleum. My conversation with these works was immediate and unmediated.
\nYet when Mendelsohn shared his perspective on the works and space with the group, this internal dialogue was enriched. Mendelsohn related Natan\u2019s work to the period in which the Mani House was constructed (1909) \u2013 the Zionist spirit of working the land, the kibbutz movement and the circular dynamic image of the hora, yet also connected it to themes, movements and images beyond the local context: Edward Muybridge\u2019s documentation of motion, Futurism, and the angel of death. Despite my interest in movement and images of movement, I hadn\u2019t thought of Muybridge when I first looked at Natan\u2019s work. Mendelsohn\u2019s comment led me to look again, differently.
\nOf course, the drawback of a tour is that there is no time to look again, one must move on with the group. It\u2019s nice to know that I have until December to return for a second look.<\/p>\n

Speaking from an intimate acquaintance with the works, Mendelsohn offered the lucky tour participants a view of the exhibit that was lively and personal. In planning the exhibit Landau and Mendelsohn related the work to the space, a two storey family home.\u00a0 One of the first homes built in Tel Aviv; it was acquired by The Leumi Bank in 1986 and lovingly restored as a visitor\u2019s center and exhibit space.<\/p>\n

Mendelsohn described their thinking regarding the space: \u201cWe envisioned the first floor as turning inward, a quiet, meditative space, ranging between black and white. It\u2019s not so much a matter of color as of sensation, a monastic introversion. The upper floor is a complete reversal, full of color, sensuality and energy. We wanted to focus on that transition from one register to another.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exhibit includes both Israeli and international art. This reflects the curator\u2019s decision \u201cnot to insist on nationality\u201d as a way of viewing art and artists, something which Mendelsohn describes as a current world trend. Indeed, national labels are often difficult to define and verge on the misleading. An artist may be born in one country, train in another, live in a third and relate artistically to the artwork of a fourth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the second floor, Ori Gersht\u2019s \u201cPomegranate\u201d explodes with stillness, ominous quiet, color and violence. Referencing Juan Sanchez Cotan\u2019s 17th century still life, Mendelsohn pointed out that while the hanging fruit in Cotan\u2019s painting is a quince, Gersht has replaced it with a pomegranate, creating visual, verbal and thematic associations. The red seeds of the pomegranate resemble blood, while the word itself in Hebrew \u2013 \u201crimon\u201d contains a double meaning: pomegranate and grenade. In Jewish culture, the pomegranate is associated with the New Year and fertility \u2013 images of birth and renewal. A work with powerful visual and kinetic resonance, \u201cPomegranate\u201d also references Harold Edgerton\u2019s stroboscopic photography as a bullet pierces the suspended fruit, shattering the peaceful image.<\/p>\n

Red is a dominant color in Erez Israeli\u2019s \u201cField of Flowers\u201d a work created entirely of beads, depicting a grassy area dotted with red poppies. Poppies have been associated with the passage to another realm since antiquity, relating to both sleep and death. In contemporary times this image has been linked very explicitly to war. The poppy was chosen as a symbol of WWI, after Dr. John McCrea\u2019s poem: \u201cIn Flanders fields the poppies blow\/Between the crosses, row on row\u201d (1915), recalling the wildflowers that grew on the fields of some of the most bloody battles. In the installation, the connotation with death is enhanced by a slightly raised area within the rectangle, like a grave. Mendelsohn noted that the contrast between the beauty of the work (and materials) and its underlying associations touches on the \u201cdeath of young people, the beauty that is about to end\u201d and related it to Gersht\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

As \u201cspoilers\u201d are another one of my least favorite things, I would prefer not to describe too many of the works included in the exhibit, but remind you that there is ample time to discover its delights for yourself. You won\u2019t have the benefit of the curator\u2019s company as I did, but you will be able to savor the choices they made. For now, I will content myself with adding that Piplotti Rist\u2019s \u201cPickelporno\u201d both is and is not what you think.<\/p>\n

Image: Ori Gersht “Pomegranate” 2006<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond Show: Contemporary Art from the Israel Museum, Jerusalem\u201d
\nCurators: Suzanne Landau, Yulla and Jacques Lipchitz Chief Curator of the Arts
\nAmitai Mendelsohn, Curator, David Orgler Department of Israeli Art<\/p>\n

Mani House
\n36 Yehuda Halevi Street, Tel Aviv
\nSun \u2013 Wed 10:00 \u2013 17:00; Thurs 10:00 \u2013 22:00; Fri 10:00 \u2013 14:00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t like to be led by the nose or told what to think, and when it comes to art \u2013 I know what I like: an experience of the senses. Eschewing the excessively verbal in my artistic adventures, I usually go out of my way to avoid guided tours of galleries and museums, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}