New Soul (2003)

Solo exhibition at Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv
Curator: Dvir Intrator

The show exhibited several paintings and objects from various origins. The paintings followed images photographed especially or collected from the lnternet, the objects served as archival/poetic material, accompanying the paintings. The show revolved around a static socio-economic state. At its center the painting Anarchy (2002) depicting a typical Jewish National Fund picnic table, located in one of the forests of lsrael, סח top of which a variety of drinks and disposable utensils, the table is deserted of its inhabitants. Next to it several paintings of figures seated or trapped in static state: Baby (2002), lying asleep in an infant seat (the painting was based סח a photo found סח the floor in south Tel Aviv. The photo, in its envelope, was presented among the exhibited objects, with the purpose of returning it to its owner), Lion (The Tiger) (2002), portrait of a friend, afflicted with muscular dystrophy, seated, breathing with respirator סח a wheelchair in his room, Artful Dodjer (2002), a painting based סח a photograph distributed by the American Border Patrol, showing a Mexican immigrant disguised as a car seat, in order to cross the border as a work immigrant. Alongside these paintings, the painting The Yatom Brothers (2003), a painting based סח an official photograph sent from the Knesset (lsraeli Parliament) (its envelope was also presented among the documents and objects in the show), in which the parliament members, brothers Danny and Ehud Yatom are seen interviewed by a Channel Tv.ס reporter. ln the background, next to one of the brothers is a portrait of Menacham Begin and next to the other brothr is a portrait of Ben-Gurion. ln between them a Knesset Guardsman, appearing to be of middle-eastern extraction.

Other works in the show included Humus (2001-2003), presenting a mass of oil paint placed on a plate as a dish of Humus, and the photograph Palette (2003), depicting a golden medallion set with colorful stones shaped like a painter's palette, shot against a hairy chest.

The variety of expressions and forms in the show - as theoretical and poetic materials and as documents and evidences - created a piercing puzzle of society in lsrael and made a claim against financial/social/ethnic classes, while posing the question of the possibility of mobility - physical/ideological as a symptom of social state.