Five Gazes Backwards | Upcoming Exhibition | Chen Flamenbaum, Liz Marr, Yuval Naor, Noga Or-Yam, Olga Stadnuk
Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art—The South Gallery in collaboration with the Edmond de Rothschild Center
The Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art presents a new exhibition in the South Gallery featuring five original projects by graduates of the Edmond de Rothschild Center Network. The artists were selected through a public call for entries and this is their first extensive display in a museum exhibition.
Looking at past traditions, the five artists embark on ancient stories, rituals and rites, as well as personal narratives of family history and youthful memories. The return to a place that no longer exists takes place through an encounter with legends, myths, and archetypes—and entails thinking about expressions of belonging, their own voices, and their place in the present.
At the heart of the creative act is the human urge to conjure a world ab nihilo; to turn thought into matter and dream into reality. In Jorge Luis Borges’s story The Circular Ruins, this desire is realized when a person arrives at the ruins of an ancient temple with the aim of performing magic: to dream a man and make it a reality. Night after night, he creates him in his imagination, limb by limb, only to discover that he, too, is nothing but someone else’s dream. The moment of discovery gives expression to the realization that each person is part of an endless stream of creation, part of a larger story—and raises questions about origins, reality, and context.
Although each of these artists operates in a different artistic medium, all five look beyond it. Together, they offer a multifaceted exhibition. Engaging with recurring archetypes—bird, well, fire, tent, totem, and others—they are creators of their inner worlds while, at the same time, they are created by stories that preceded them and will remain after them.
Noga Or-Yam’s sound installation, Reviving, is concealed within a temporary tent. It offers an intimate space for being while listening to a frank dialogue with her father and engaging in an inner meditative practice.
Liz Marr presents a series of oils and large charcoal painting, titled Birds Aren’t Real. Marr uses references from art history and theological literature from the late Middle Ages to create a new mythology with its own unique appearance, identity, and rules.
Yuval Naor presents photographic installation titled Willing Backwards. In this series of treated photographs of white crows, of a documentary nature, he blurs the line between documentation and fiction while referring to Classical mythology.
Olga Stadnuk presents a circular structure that brings to mind ancient forms of convergence, such as around a well or a bonfire. This is a participatory work in which the visitors’ movements are manifested, through a “collective consciousness,” as a Singular–Plural shared experience.
Chen Flamenbaum presents The Garden, a sculptural installation featuring hybrid figures and miraculous mythological creatures. The space he created straddles Pop culture, consumer products, art-historical icons, and legends from distant cultures that shaped his childhood landscapes and consciousness.
