TRI DEVICI POD OKNOM, kim? Contemporary Art Center, Riga, Latvia, February 12 – April 3, 2016
TRI DEVICI POD OKNOM, kim? Contemporary Art Center, Riga, Latvia, February 12 – April 3, 2016
TRI DEVICI POD OKNOM, kim? Contemporary Art Center, Riga, Latvia, February 12 – April 3, 2016
Maayan Elyakim—Tomer Rosenthal—Alexandra Zuckerman
By Nicola Trezzi
Jaffa, August 21
Three artists and their works meet a water tower in the center of Tel Aviv. A ramp of stairs, spiraling up like a snail emerging from its shell, leading to a gray room, a space for contemplation, soon-to-become a space for leisure. A set of sensibilities that require a disconnection from the reality we know, a concert of lines, curly lines, lines that disappear into each other, eccentric lines, squared, one inside the other; they come to us with a force that is at once centrifugal and centripetal, attraction and repulsion go hand in hand; the desire to be seen and the need to hide are two sides of the same coin. A flock of colors—purple, blue, red—escaping the light of the city, running away from its obfuscations, verging into white, fading into the void, falling asleep. The spiral, the steps, the gray room, the perfect equation for an encounter with a family of three, made of signs, symbols and images—Tarot cards reading the future of imaginary people.
Few works of art appear: works that are never finished, works that flirt with folklore, works that look into the cracks of civilization, art made to feed its own desires, like a snake eating its own tail, finding pleasure in its own destruction. What you see on the walls is a constellation of amulets, objects made to encapsulate forces that are beyond understanding, beyond explanation, above and below, moving inside-out and upside-down. These works of art invite us to a kind of hypnosis suitable only for few privileged individuals, not just human beings but rather living forms that are capable of looking without the support of any given context, trying to focus on what is in front of them, a drawing, a piece of paper, the reflection on a piece of glass, the intrinsic curve of a corner, dust on the floor, the sound of empty rooms, the touch of a cool breeze coming from the sea.
To some extent this is an exhibition that requires no audience. No spectatorship will give this set of works a new life—they are talismans to be worshipped by an absent sect. Perhaps a moth, flapping its wings on these works, in the dark, will be the most intimate of all encounters. Maybe a drop of dew will caress these works softly and gently, like no one else could. Even writing here becomes an excuse to escape, an invitation to evasion, an ode to procrastination, with nonchalance, without letting commonplaces come in and tell us how to read, how to look at things, how to perceive reality, how to play the game, who has the power… who leads… where to… what for?
Not aware of anything about this event, not knowing what stands behind this epiphany, what are its premises, what are its goals, I accept the invitation blindfolded and in this very state, possibly, or actually, blinded by the reflection of light bouncing off of a mirror, I write about it, but most of all, I fantasize about it, about these works, about their frames, about this space, about this abandoned water tower in the middle of Tel Aviv. I dream, and I let my dreams turn around within their own very special shadows; indeed they are moving in a dance we will all sooner or later rejoin.