Shay Zilberman, Eli Horesh"The Shape of Water"The David Lopatie International Conference Center, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot1
Shay Zilberman / “Elul Moon, after Lilien”, 2018
This self-portrait was first shown in an exhibit entitled “Men Gazing at Water,” in the Tel Aviv Artists’ Studios. Based on various earlier sources, the image presented here testifies to a material world that is disappearing, taking with it significant fragments of time. This stained glass work is a self-portrait of the artist, but Zilberman has based it on a drawing of Ephraim Moses Lilien, often called the “first Zionist artist,” who created iconic images of Jewish life in the Art Nouveau style for “Songs from the Ghetto,” by his friend Morris Rosenfeld.
Eli Horesh / “Otium”
Eli Horesh’s creative process is partially based on what she calls “otium,” a Latin word used to describe idle or leisure time, in which a person withdraws from actively creating. This is the leisure of reflecting, learning, resting or playing. The word “otium” could sometimes be used negatively, to imply laziness, But Horesh, like the philosopher Bertrand Russell, like the “lazy” bacteria in the lab of Prof. Uri Alon, like a few introspective types hiding in our midst, believes that otium is a necessary part of the process of creation.
But the beginning of this process was a kind of fertilization: The artist injected a drop of ink or paint into a drop of water. At this point, the artist left the fertilized water drop on its own, and went off for several hours to enjoy a state of introspective otium. In the meantime, the color dispersed in the water, and the water, in turn, slowly dried up, leaving a “signature” on the paper. The artist could now observe the fixed images on the paper and exert her freedom of choice and aesthetics to choose the rarest or most interesting signatures, turning them into the actual works of art by
scanning them and printing them enlarged, in high resolution.
Curator: Yivsam Azgad
Open Sun.-Thurs., 09:00-15:00. Entrance is free.
