Blowing On A Hairy Shoulder /
Grief Hunters
September 7 – December 4 2011
Reception: Wednesday, September 7, 6-8PM
Exhibition walkthrough with artist Eli Petel and exhibition curator Doron Rabina:
Wednesday, September 7, 5PM, ICA Members Only
The Institute of Contemporary Art presents Blowing on a Hairy Shoulder / Grief Hunters. Organized by prominent Israeli artist and curator Doron Rabina, this exhibition presents work by twenty artists from Israel, Greece, Germany, Belgium, Britain, and America that examines the relationships between originality and origin. Through video, photography, drawing, and sculpture these works take the challenges of "originality"—invention, innovation, novelty—to extremes, while making the term "origin" (genesis, precedent, historical debt, pre-historic territory) a subject.
A sculptural work by Mark Manders shows half-formed humans emerging from and into clay, exploring the myth of the earliest human making. In a similar vein, a video by Gilad Ratman, "The 588 Project," documents a natural mud pool with people, completely immersed, breathing through the tubes, revealing a startlingly contemporary look at life arising out of the mud. Imagery of fossils appears in the work of Tamir Lichtenberg and Yochai Avrahami, and of flame in pieces by Ariel Schlesinger and Carson Fisk-Vittori. "The Earth, the Sun, and the Moon," by Asaf Koriat, looks like a constructed archeological artifact and uses Israeli coins to represent part of the cosmos. Though not exclusively a show of Israeli artists, this show brings the inventive vitality of the Israeli art scene to the American public.
Boaz Arad, Gordon and I
Oliver Husain, Stimulation
Lior Waterman and Amit Levinger, Plasma
Gilad Ratman, The 588 Project
Artists In The Show
Ron Amir, Boaz Arad, Yochai Avrahami, Ronnie Bass, Guy Ben-Ner, Corinne Day, Oliver Husain, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Asaf Koriat, Amit Levinger & Lior Waterman, Tamir Lichtenberg, Harel Luz, Mark Manders, Uri Nir, Eli Petel, Gilad Ratman, Carson Fisk-Vittori, Ariel Schlesinger, and Dash Snow.Listen
About Doron Rabina
Doron Rabina (b.1971) is an artist and among the leading curators and theorists of contemporary art in Israel. Formerly a consultant-curator for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, he has organized many large scale exhibitions, such as: Beyond Guilt, Tina B Art Festival, Prague, Czech Republic (2009); Eventually We'll Die, Herzliya Museum of Art (2008); Power, Omanut Ha'aretz no. 4, Reading power station, Tel Aviv (2005). As an artist, Rabina represented Israel in the 26th biennale of São Paulo (Brazil) in 2004. Since 2009, he has held the position of Head of Hamidrasha School of Art, Beit Berl College, one of Israel's leading art colleges.
Blowing on a Hairy Shoulder / Grief Hunters is organized by Tel-Aviv-based artist and curator Doron Rabina and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.
The ICA acknowledges Dina & Jerry Wind; Kirk Kirkpatrick, John Wind, & Maximal Art Inc. for their generous family support of this project. We are grateful for support from the Consulate General of Israel in Philadelphia; Artis-Contemporary Israeli Art Fund; the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation; and the Neubauer Family Foundation. We acknowledge the generous sponsorship of Barbara B. & Theodore R. Aronson for the exhibition catalogue. This show is also supported by donations in honor of John Wind's birthday from Patricia & Robert R. Isen; Helene B. & Archbold van Beuren; John Pcsolar & Alan Sandman; Cindy Shaffran & Gary Schwartz; Susan Dakin & Nathana Hirsch; Darragh M. Muldoon & Jan Deruiter; Maxine Dotseth & Steve Levy along with Elliot Levy; Marguerite V. Rodgers & James H. Timberlake; and Linda Wingate & William Liberi. ICA is also grateful for support by endowment gifts from ICA board members: the Wendy Fisher Fund; the Cheri S. & Steven M. Friedman Endowment Fund; and the Babette & Harvey Snyder Fund. Additional funding has been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; The Dietrich Foundation, Inc.; the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art; friends and members of ICA; the University of Pennsylvania; and the Philadelphia Cultural Fund. ICA receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. ICA acknowledges Le Meridien Philadelphia as our official UnLock Art partner hotel.
image: (Top) Uri Nir, Sphinx, digital print, 2006. Courtesy of the artist.