Exhibitions

The coronavirus crisis and its widespread effects have revealed the fragility of our existence in our most private spaces, as well as in the general social order. This is a period of fear and insecurity, yet also one of potential insight. It allows us to see through the cracks in the foundations of our existence and reexamine them, though the encounter may be distressful and shocking.

The present period, when many of us are alone and confined to one room, is perhaps a time to contemplate depictions of "horror rooms" familiar from art history. Throughout this history we encounter images of empty, cold rooms conveying a sense of loneliness, insecurity, and fear. A special historical place is reserved for depictions of sealed rooms, lacking windows or doors, such as prison cells, graves, churches, theaters, reading rooms, or collection chambers. These spaces do not allow the occupant to gaze outside, illuminating only that which lies within.

"The age of anxiety," "the culture of fear," the "risk society" – all these terms confirm the centrality of fear in our times. The increasing use of the term "risk" highlights the contemporary tendency to treat a wide range of phenomena as threatening and dangerous. Art reacts to this climate on both the private and the collective levels, engaging with an array of threats connected to violence, political power, and more.

In his work Black Milk, Belu-Simion Fainaru invites the viewer to contemplate a work that is densely detailed yet whose characteristics are minimal, emphasizing a universal dimension. The black, toxic machine oil, threatening and repelling, is held in white, delicate porcelain utensils with understated decorations. The table and chairs belong to the past, to the artist's parents' living room. This is a forgotten world – one in which we do not await a ghost meal, a meal that will never take place. The sense of absence and nothingness is a continuation of the installation Belongs Nowhere and to Another Time, exhibited at the 2019 Venice Biennale, where Fainaru was chosen to represent Romania.

During the months of coronavirus lockdown, we were inundated with a stream of jokes, videos, and memes. WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram were filled with jokes hoping to put a smile on people's faces and dispel, if even for a short time, the depression and sense of crisis caused by the pandemic, with its accompanying social isolation and economic hardships. Many WhatsApp and Facebook groups were created by professionals from the health and care professions who sought to lighten their difficult routine and offer participants moments of laughter and solidarity.

The artistic and cultural discourse includes a broad discussion of womanhood and feminism – mostly concerning issues of the feminine body and the patriarchal gaze directed at it. Now – with many reports of violence against women during the coronavirus crisis – this issue has become more prominent and pressing.
This exhibition seeks to focus the viewers' gaze on the domestic feminine space, which functions as a kind of "micro-territory." It presents a spectrum of experiences, ranging from protection and intimacy to discomfort and subversiveness.

The star of the exhibition is the "dark knight" of the animal kingdom: the bat. The bat is a flying mammal that is perceived as a dark and frightening creature mostly due to its appearance and nocturnal life. In the past months, with stay-at-home orders imposed throughout the world, we have come to notice animals taking over our outside space. At night, in our absence, they can do as they please, unafraid that we might see them and expose their secrets.

Meirav Heiman focuses her attention on the gaps between the ideal and the concrete, the virtual and the real, the personal and the anonymous, aiming to subvert the fantasy of the consecrated institutions of marriage and family. In most of her works she uses accessories, stylized design, grotesque elements, humor, and exaggeration in an attempt to simultaneously convey familiarity and alienation. In her words, she is interested in "rituals that have become mechanical and in distorted body language, which intensify feelings of loneliness and disconnection."

Between March and May 2020, the Israeli government declared a "state of emergency" to handle the threat of a new, little-understood epidemic. A series of restrictions were imposed, including physical policing, isolation, and social distancing. The new norms entailed by the coronavirus crisis began to seep into public life, like the virus itself.
This exhibition presents works by a group of photographers, created in response to the new way of life forced on the public.

It is surprising to find that virtual space is in fact based on ancient cultural principles. A strange space, with no taste or smell, wind or sun – a binary space made up mostly of combinations of the numbers 1 and 0, that we experience through a bright screen, as if peering through a "window". Still, this "environment" is based on the same mathematical principles that underlie our perception of space and the science of perspective as they were developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The illusion of a familiar space that functions according to familiar laws conceals the reality of a virtual environment, in which our body has no existence, and neither do our physical experiences or specific viewpoint.