Выставка אתם (You)
Behind the Looking-Glass and Facing It
Irena Gordon
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
Lewis Carrol, from “Jabberwocky”
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
To kick, to shake, to stir up - Anna Lukashevski, Andrei Lev and Inna Polonsky present works that unsettle and give pleasure at the same time. They place a critical mirror up to the face of the Israeli spectator while keeping him imprisoned with eyes opened wide by the power of aesthetics.
These three artists belong to “Kollektiv” - a recently formed group, most of whom are Russian speakers who came to Israel in the 1990’s. They studied here and emerged as artists, yet they live and create out of a deep sense of “otherness”. This feeling governs the work of the three artists showing in this exhibition and enables them to take a double stance:one is that of outsiders observing Israeli society, to which the word “atem” (you) is addressed. The other is a judgmental self observation, as the word “atem” is self addressed, as part of the criticism towards the “Russian Ghetto”. The group’s name “Kollektive” itself is both ideological and satirical.
On the one hand, it expresses a need to create art as part of a collective of artists who share similar ideas on art and out of a belief in the avant-garde role of art. On the other hand, it’s irony is pointed back at them, as it reflects the problematic nature of free creation in a context of a group, especially for those whose families suffered under the Soviet regime.
“Atem” is a group exhibition composed of three solo exhibitions. Together these form a multi-discourse which is both derogative and harsh and at the same time is poetic and strives towards what exists beyond the mundane. Each of the artists presents an independent artistic language and practice, while sustaining a dialogue with art history as well as with contemporary artists like Peter Doig and John Currin: The three of them work with various kinds of ready-made, whether these are photographs that appear on Facebook, or different household
images from the internet. The ready-mades function in the works as a starting point from which to confront the reality around them, while using a language that touches upon the theatrical and the fantastic “Mor, “Ortal”, “Eti” are the names of several figures whose portraits fill Anna Lukashevsky’s present artworks. In contrast to her previous works of symbolic and surrealistic drawings created on the computer, the present series is made of realistic drawings in color pencils on paper, of portraits based on photographs the subjects themselves put on Facebook, recording parties and clubbing. Couples appear in some of the paintings - “Shir & Rami”, “Dudu & Moshico”, “Oshrat & Momo” - their mutual posing for the camera reflect a social behavior which the artist wishes to study. The estrangement and detachment she feels are expressed in the strong and compelling use of color and in turning the figures into caricatures of their period. Lukashevsky acts from within the genre of portraiture in order to create a profound statement, yet not a humorless one, on the shallowness of Israeli society and on its money and publicity controlled. culture... Following public exposure through the internet, she creates a continuity of immortalization in the painting tradition, as she tracks down codes of dress, behavior and beauty. She is fascinated by the way in which the lack of self awareness of the figures reflects emptiness and auto glorification, while ignoring the other.
Anna Lukashevsky "Mor", colored pencils on paper,
Anna Lukashevsky "Ortal", colored pencils on paper
Anna Lukashevsky "Eti", colored pencils on paper
Anna Lukashevsky "Dudu & Moshico", colored pencils on paper
Anna Lukashevsky "Lili & Momo", colored pencils on paper
The art of Andrey Lev combines a sisyphic work in colorful pencils and oil, a flood of psychedelic images, random and symbolic which are chosen from the internet and words that are taken from everyday language, from politics and the media. His art seeks to create works with a harsh critical content concealed by a “beautiful” and “design” outlook that turn into desirable and fetishistic works. He creates out of the tension between the visible and the invisible and between the revealed and the hidden. In works like “Wow eyze keta” or “Ma shlomhem?”, the verbal is intrinsic to the visual, and the result is an almost religious object in its symbolism and mystery. In his works the words lose their ordinary meaning and turn into hieroglyphs that act as conceptual codes alongside the pictorial images.
The works deal with the dialectics between the verbal image and the visual one, as well as with a fetishistic process words go through, till they lose their verbal function and turn into an object of social and behavioral conduct which empties them of meaning. Lev creates conceptual and visual mazes and riddles filled with animal images, primitive and ritualistic symbols, scientific references, dialogues with the art world and
autobiographical elements. All this is offered to the spectator as diamonds: pure, perfect and shiny yet almost impenetrable.
Andrey Lev "KOLLEKTIV", acrylic & marker pens on canvas
Andrey Lev "Ma shlomhem?", acrylic & marker pens on canvas
Andrey Lev "Chagall", acrylic & marker pens on canvas
Andrey Lev "Wow eyze keta", acrylic & marker pens on canvas
Mundane objects and phantasmagoric creatures are assembled together in the world of Inna Polonsky to create sculptural compositions full of beauty and bitter irony on life in Israel, on Judaism and its contemporary Israeli face, and on the gap between daily reality and the constant search for wealth and fame. Polonsky testifies that her art deals with hunger: hunger for money, hunger for beauty, hunger for happiness, hunger for
knowledge, and hunger for a different kind of life. Her fine and expert work in molded and glazed ceramics glazed with lasters and decals is inspired by the materialistic entity - a book, a bottle, a skull of a wild pig, a cabbage - and wishes to touch the spiritual and poetic: the delicate hands bursting out of the book in a gesture of prayer (a reoccurring motif in her work) suggest the need to transcend matter; the opened upside down skull in the work entitled “Mess Up”, expresses uncaring and cruel conduct in face of suffering and death; the cabbageas an object of beauty with test tubes stuck in it relates to a commercial of a juice factory in Ukraine during the Soviet regime, as the title “you” is a warning against the possibility of dictatorship in every political leadership.Her works revere the artistic object and construct a continuous criticism of Israeli society through the use of local materials that are worked on until they turn into a hybrid of high art and low culture: a bottle of Chlorox is turned into a sanctified object which sheds a sarcastic light on prayer rituals and religious take over; the Duchamp-like toilet with the Star of David and the white pearls point a finger at the Ashkenazi Jews’ feelings of superiority; golden pitas carrying pearllike objects as well as the gold and silver cheese stand for the ludicrous quest for money;
Inna Polonsky "The Book of Life", ceramic moulding
inna Polonsky "Hard Cheese", ceramic moulding
Inna Polonsky " Material", ceramic moulding
Inna Polonsky "Shabbat Kodesh", ceramic moulding
In Lewis Caroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There the philosophical debate about the centrality of language and its limits in understanding the world unfolds as a game of chess in the Land of Mirrors full of fantastic characters, verbal adventures and a blurring of the boundaries between dream and reality. Thus the work of the three artists stems from reality and regards it with uncompromising criticism. Furthermore, it these works express their acknowledgment of being an intrinsic part of the place, through clever aesthetic games and images full of fantasy and humor. Their work offers the spectator a different kind of adventure, a journey to an unknown land on the way to self revelation
Irena Gordon
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
Lewis Carrol, from “Jabberwocky”
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
To kick, to shake, to stir up - Anna Lukashevski, Andrei Lev and Inna Polonsky present works that unsettle and give pleasure at the same time. They place a critical mirror up to the face of the Israeli spectator while keeping him imprisoned with eyes opened wide by the power of aesthetics.
These three artists belong to “Kollektiv” - a recently formed group, most of whom are Russian speakers who came to Israel in the 1990’s. They studied here and emerged as artists, yet they live and create out of a deep sense of “otherness”. This feeling governs the work of the three artists showing in this exhibition and enables them to take a double stance:one is that of outsiders observing Israeli society, to which the word “atem” (you) is addressed. The other is a judgmental self observation, as the word “atem” is self addressed, as part of the criticism towards the “Russian Ghetto”. The group’s name “Kollektive” itself is both ideological and satirical.
On the one hand, it expresses a need to create art as part of a collective of artists who share similar ideas on art and out of a belief in the avant-garde role of art. On the other hand, it’s irony is pointed back at them, as it reflects the problematic nature of free creation in a context of a group, especially for those whose families suffered under the Soviet regime.
“Atem” is a group exhibition composed of three solo exhibitions. Together these form a multi-discourse which is both derogative and harsh and at the same time is poetic and strives towards what exists beyond the mundane. Each of the artists presents an independent artistic language and practice, while sustaining a dialogue with art history as well as with contemporary artists like Peter Doig and John Currin: The three of them work with various kinds of ready-made, whether these are photographs that appear on Facebook, or different household
images from the internet. The ready-mades function in the works as a starting point from which to confront the reality around them, while using a language that touches upon the theatrical and the fantastic “Mor, “Ortal”, “Eti” are the names of several figures whose portraits fill Anna Lukashevsky’s present artworks. In contrast to her previous works of symbolic and surrealistic drawings created on the computer, the present series is made of realistic drawings in color pencils on paper, of portraits based on photographs the subjects themselves put on Facebook, recording parties and clubbing. Couples appear in some of the paintings - “Shir & Rami”, “Dudu & Moshico”, “Oshrat & Momo” - their mutual posing for the camera reflect a social behavior which the artist wishes to study. The estrangement and detachment she feels are expressed in the strong and compelling use of color and in turning the figures into caricatures of their period. Lukashevsky acts from within the genre of portraiture in order to create a profound statement, yet not a humorless one, on the shallowness of Israeli society and on its money and publicity controlled. culture... Following public exposure through the internet, she creates a continuity of immortalization in the painting tradition, as she tracks down codes of dress, behavior and beauty. She is fascinated by the way in which the lack of self awareness of the figures reflects emptiness and auto glorification, while ignoring the other.
Anna Lukashevsky "Mor", colored pencils on paper,
Anna Lukashevsky "Ortal", colored pencils on paper
Anna Lukashevsky "Eti", colored pencils on paper
Anna Lukashevsky "Dudu & Moshico", colored pencils on paper
Anna Lukashevsky "Lili & Momo", colored pencils on paper
The art of Andrey Lev combines a sisyphic work in colorful pencils and oil, a flood of psychedelic images, random and symbolic which are chosen from the internet and words that are taken from everyday language, from politics and the media. His art seeks to create works with a harsh critical content concealed by a “beautiful” and “design” outlook that turn into desirable and fetishistic works. He creates out of the tension between the visible and the invisible and between the revealed and the hidden. In works like “Wow eyze keta” or “Ma shlomhem?”, the verbal is intrinsic to the visual, and the result is an almost religious object in its symbolism and mystery. In his works the words lose their ordinary meaning and turn into hieroglyphs that act as conceptual codes alongside the pictorial images.
The works deal with the dialectics between the verbal image and the visual one, as well as with a fetishistic process words go through, till they lose their verbal function and turn into an object of social and behavioral conduct which empties them of meaning. Lev creates conceptual and visual mazes and riddles filled with animal images, primitive and ritualistic symbols, scientific references, dialogues with the art world and
autobiographical elements. All this is offered to the spectator as diamonds: pure, perfect and shiny yet almost impenetrable.
Andrey Lev "KOLLEKTIV", acrylic & marker pens on canvas
Andrey Lev "Ma shlomhem?", acrylic & marker pens on canvas
Andrey Lev "Chagall", acrylic & marker pens on canvas
Andrey Lev "Wow eyze keta", acrylic & marker pens on canvas
Mundane objects and phantasmagoric creatures are assembled together in the world of Inna Polonsky to create sculptural compositions full of beauty and bitter irony on life in Israel, on Judaism and its contemporary Israeli face, and on the gap between daily reality and the constant search for wealth and fame. Polonsky testifies that her art deals with hunger: hunger for money, hunger for beauty, hunger for happiness, hunger for
knowledge, and hunger for a different kind of life. Her fine and expert work in molded and glazed ceramics glazed with lasters and decals is inspired by the materialistic entity - a book, a bottle, a skull of a wild pig, a cabbage - and wishes to touch the spiritual and poetic: the delicate hands bursting out of the book in a gesture of prayer (a reoccurring motif in her work) suggest the need to transcend matter; the opened upside down skull in the work entitled “Mess Up”, expresses uncaring and cruel conduct in face of suffering and death; the cabbageas an object of beauty with test tubes stuck in it relates to a commercial of a juice factory in Ukraine during the Soviet regime, as the title “you” is a warning against the possibility of dictatorship in every political leadership.Her works revere the artistic object and construct a continuous criticism of Israeli society through the use of local materials that are worked on until they turn into a hybrid of high art and low culture: a bottle of Chlorox is turned into a sanctified object which sheds a sarcastic light on prayer rituals and religious take over; the Duchamp-like toilet with the Star of David and the white pearls point a finger at the Ashkenazi Jews’ feelings of superiority; golden pitas carrying pearllike objects as well as the gold and silver cheese stand for the ludicrous quest for money;
Inna Polonsky "The Book of Life", ceramic moulding
inna Polonsky "Hard Cheese", ceramic moulding
Inna Polonsky " Material", ceramic moulding
Inna Polonsky "Shabbat Kodesh", ceramic moulding
In Lewis Caroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There the philosophical debate about the centrality of language and its limits in understanding the world unfolds as a game of chess in the Land of Mirrors full of fantastic characters, verbal adventures and a blurring of the boundaries between dream and reality. Thus the work of the three artists stems from reality and regards it with uncompromising criticism. Furthermore, it these works express their acknowledgment of being an intrinsic part of the place, through clever aesthetic games and images full of fantasy and humor. Their work offers the spectator a different kind of adventure, a journey to an unknown land on the way to self revelation