De Zone
Curator: Hadas Kedar
Alexis Couzino (Canada); Aim Duelle Luski (Israel); Raluca Grada Amandi and Olivio Logian-Genecio's (UK); Jackie Pearl (Israel); Barak Rubin (Israel); Stanislav Welbel and Yael Vishinzki-Levi (Poland).
Arad Contemporary Art Center
2018
The exhibition suggests an understanding of the Negev and the Dead Sea area, as fertile grounds that generate and nurture images based on the optic phenomenon of the fata morgana or mirage. The optic phenomenon occurs in the space between earth and the sky and it is generated by fraction of ray lights which is caused by the significant temperature difference at the desert between daytime and nighttime, producing an inverted image on the skyline.
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The exhibition displays artworks that oscillate between a scientific point of view that regards the fata morgana as an optic phenomenon or a technological wonder, and a metaphysical perspective that ties the visual spectacle with mystic experiences and encounters, divine revelations and hallucinations based on narratives of the Bible, the New Testimony, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and ancient Jewish external books.
Jacqueline Pearl's artwork EshetLot (Lot's Wife) (2017-2018) is based on women workers' in a potassium factory that operated in Sodom during the 1930s and 1940s accounts that resonate the story of Lot's wife; Arad Camera (2018), a project of the theorist and photographer Chaim Deuelle Luski, separates, at the moment of recording, between the two parts of being: heaven and earth; Blue Board/Tablet, Red Board/Tablet, Green Board/Tablet is Barak Rubin's series of photographs which is based on 14th century BC written books that were found in the ancient Near East, mainly in Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine; Raluca Grada Amandi and Olivio Logian-Genecio's (UK). Inhabitants of Exclusion Areas (I.E.A.): r#creat1on is a spatially based and augmented reality-based work that deals with temporal digital forms of life, illustrating the contemporary human condition; Aradlines by Yael Vishnizki-Levi and Stanislaw Welbel (Poland) following their interest in the Nazca Lines the artists looked for a similar phenomenon in the Negev desert and around Arad. Visiting local archeological sites and following ancient paths the artists recognized stone labyrinths, ancient routes, mysterious sand circles, and geometric gardens at the city center; Alexis Cuzino's (Canada) work Mirage is a documentation of the artist's performances in which he improvised movements in the desert surrounding Arad. The mechanical movements emphasize the limitation and temporality of the living body in correlation with the temporal natural environment.
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