Die asporas « Young Israeli artists in Berlin« group installations curator: Lior Wilentzik www.dieasporas.com contact:dieasporas@gmail.com 015126857385 Recent years have been marked with a rising trend of young Israeli artists immigrating to Berlin. Paradoxically, this wave of immigration is mostly understood not as a transition into an unknown culture, but rather as a form of historical return. Even so, here these artists are faced with their own foreignness and their perplexed notion of identity is maintained in constant flux. Striking cultural differences are discovered within local and national signs and symbols, alien to the newcomer’s eye, evoking a desire to critically study them and deconstruct. The vast visual sphere of Germany's art, craft, architecture, design and landscape, is all reinterpreted and valued anew. One can only assume that the strong historical ties between Israel and Germany contribute to this desire, ever deepening and layering the foundation of the Israeli artist’s unique prismatic viewpoint. However when exploring these connections, a profounder less apparent discourse, between the two lands is revealed: Bezalel academy - the first Israeli art institute, was conceived in Berlin (1905) by the Practical Zionist movement. It attempted to formulate a new legacy of original middle eastern visual arts and crafts, fused with imported European (mainly German) artistic traditions. Pulsing this initiative were Jewish craftsmen, artists and architects, who were invited by the Bezalel founders to set the cultural tone of the newfound land. These brought with them the prevailing artistic themes in Europe at the time (i.e Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, Jugenstil), which were now merged with Palestina's residing Near-Eastern traditions of craft, altogether formulating a hybrid style, meant to represent the "new Israel" - an exciting melting pot of east and west. However, in the course of time this utopian vision failed to coincide with Israel's turbulent nature and so subsequently, voices inside the art scene were split in two main directions, political contemporary conceptualism opposing European traditionalism. The Die Asporas project should be read as a contemporary counter, juxtaposed reaction to this development, imposing an 'occidental' perspective on Europe and Germany in particular, in return for the orientalist gaze then directed at Palestina. The project's touring nature exhibits developing changing content by its artists. The choice to position the works one against the other as a dynamic site specific wall installation, offers a zoom in zoom out examination of the overall scope of the phenomenon which they represent. Alina Shmukler presents thick, richly layered oil-painting. She depicts nostalgic imagery, taken by Berlin's profound architectural heritage which fuses the endless tales of countless European centuries all into the shifting locus of its present state. Her festive visual treatment hints at the strong influence of early German Neo-Expressionism. Alma Alloro's dynamic pen drawings on architectural paper, serve as foundation to short animation pieces. She revives Bauhaus's core symbolism of pure functionality, only to desecrate it altogether. Paraded into an amusing low-tech dysfunctional salad, rendered masturbatory, the rigorous drawing leaves the eye wandering through the perfectly geometric stains. Dorit Bialer creates elaborate visual puzzles bearing the likes of strict yet playful Infographic aesthetics. Reminiscent of the notorious Nazi anatomy studies, Bialer implements similar pseudo-scientific logic on her own body, to map down the social identity conundrum which characterizes the present European post-modern multicultural state. Lior Wilentzik tackles found decoration within German casual living space. Acquiring her cultural orientation within Israel's poor visual scope invoked her desire for extreme inspection of the trivial and redundant, from gardening and interior design to paper table napkins. The outcome is a re-assemblage into graphically sharpened, poppy yet gravely charged symbolism. Shira Wachsmann uses a polar variety of thoroughly executed techniques, bridging between the conceptual-representative and the bare organic. Her work echoes man's multilayered relation to land. She mainly thematizes the topos of home, confronting biblical and philosophical assertions, providing insight through it, into the origins of identity. Benyamin Reich's artistic journey began from within the Ultra Orthodox Israeli subculture. This unique standpoint has brought him to constantly dwell on notions of spirituality, now reaching into untapped areas of European modernity. The Baroque aesthetic of Reich's photography enables him to uplift the intimate and erotic into the realm of the divine. Gabriel S Moses dwells for months on end to compose traditional naturalistic imagery, somehow gone monstrously wrong. This Sisyphean contemplation on catastrophe encapsulates a new contemporary Romanticism. In a world determined to melt down its own poles, Friedrich's monk has drowned in Hokusai's tsunami, enamored with his own demise. Yemima Fink's oeuvre suggests a new, pleasant yet humorously pungent, approach to craftsmanship. Collected imagery of naive provincial domestic architecture, found in the outskirts of Berlin, is embedded into elaborate collages, resembling old fashioned textile patters. The result is a carefully refined, cunning merger of various manners of representing tradition.
Die asporas « Young Israeli artists in Berlin« group installations curator: Lior Wilentzik www.dieasporas.com contact:dieasporas@gmail.com 015126857385 Recent years have been marked with a rising trend of young Israeli artists immigrating to Berlin. Paradoxically, this wave of immigration is mostly understood not as a transition into an unknown culture, but rather as a form of historical return. Even so, here these artists are faced with their own foreignness and their perplexed notion of identity is maintained in constant flux. Striking cultural differences are discovered within local and national signs and symbols, alien to the newcomer’s eye, evoking a desire to critically study them and deconstruct. The vast visual sphere of Germany's art, craft, architecture, design and landscape, is all reinterpreted and valued anew. One can only assume that the strong historical ties between Israel and Germany contribute to this desire, ever deepening and layering the foundation of the Israeli artist’s unique prismatic viewpoint. However when exploring these connections, a profounder less apparent discourse, between the two lands is revealed: Bezalel academy - the first Israeli art institute, was conceived in Berlin (1905) by the Practical Zionist movement. It attempted to formulate a new legacy of original middle eastern visual arts and crafts, fused with imported European (mainly German) artistic traditions. Pulsing this initiative were Jewish craftsmen, artists and architects, who were invited by the Bezalel founders to set the cultural tone of the newfound land. These brought with them the prevailing artistic themes in Europe at the time (i.e Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, Jugenstil), which were now merged with Palestina's residing Near-Eastern traditions of craft, altogether formulating a hybrid style, meant to represent the "new Israel" - an exciting melting pot of east and west. However, in the course of time this utopian vision failed to coincide with Israel's turbulent nature and so subsequently, voices inside the art scene were split in two main directions, political contemporary conceptualism opposing European traditionalism. The Die Asporas project should be read as a contemporary counter, juxtaposed reaction to this development, imposing an 'occidental' perspective on Europe and Germany in particular, in return for the orientalist gaze then directed at Palestina. The project's touring nature exhibits developing changing content by its artists. The choice to position the works one against the other as a dynamic site specific wall installation, offers a zoom in zoom out examination of the overall scope of the phenomenon which they represent. Alina Shmukler presents thick, richly layered oil-painting. She depicts nostalgic imagery, taken by Berlin's profound architectural heritage which fuses the endless tales of countless European centuries all into the shifting locus of its present state. Her festive visual treatment hints at the strong influence of early German Neo-Expressionism. Alma Alloro's dynamic pen drawings on architectural paper, serve as foundation to short animation pieces. She revives Bauhaus's core symbolism of pure functionality, only to desecrate it altogether. Paraded into an amusing low-tech dysfunctional salad, rendered masturbatory, the rigorous drawing leaves the eye wandering through the perfectly geometric stains. Dorit Bialer creates elaborate visual puzzles bearing the likes of strict yet playful Infographic aesthetics. Reminiscent of the notorious Nazi anatomy studies, Bialer implements similar pseudo-scientific logic on her own body, to map down the social identity conundrum which characterizes the present European post-modern multicultural state. Lior Wilentzik tackles found decoration within German casual living space. Acquiring her cultural orientation within Israel's poor visual scope invoked her desire for extreme inspection of the trivial and redundant, from gardening and interior design to paper table napkins. The outcome is a re-assemblage into graphically sharpened, poppy yet gravely charged symbolism. Shira Wachsmann uses a polar variety of thoroughly executed techniques, bridging between the conceptual-representative and the bare organic. Her work echoes man's multilayered relation to land. She mainly thematizes the topos of home, confronting biblical and philosophical assertions, providing insight through it, into the origins of identity. Benyamin Reich's artistic journey began from within the Ultra Orthodox Israeli subculture. This unique standpoint has brought him to constantly dwell on notions of spirituality, now reaching into untapped areas of European modernity. The Baroque aesthetic of Reich's photography enables him to uplift the intimate and erotic into the realm of the divine. Gabriel S Moses dwells for months on end to compose traditional naturalistic imagery, somehow gone monstrously wrong. This Sisyphean contemplation on catastrophe encapsulates a new contemporary Romanticism. In a world determined to melt down its own poles, Friedrich's monk has drowned in Hokusai's tsunami, enamored with his own demise. Yemima Fink's oeuvre suggests a new, pleasant yet humorously pungent, approach to craftsmanship. Collected imagery of naive provincial domestic architecture, found in the outskirts of Berlin, is embedded into elaborate collages, resembling old fashioned textile patters. The result is a carefully refined, cunning merger of various manners of representing tradition.