Out of Place

Artists Incubator Exhibition

Art Cube Artists Studios, Jerusalem, 2021-2022

The exhibition concluding the Art Cube Artists’ Studios Incubator (2021) marks a return to an altered reality, where pre-Covid daily routines have been replaced with new ones, bringing new meanings to both body and place. Adapting to a post-Corona reality changed the way we think about physical and mental spaces, while the awareness towards our body and its surroundings became more sensitive and acute. The geographic limitations imposed on us and the circumstances we lived by, made us rethink the space around us and beyond. While, the physical and mental obstacles that surfaced during the continuous periods of lockdowns, made most of us work in seclusion. Not surprisingly, the themes and subject matters that occupy the artists in this lab, cajole notions of both body and place and thus are in synergy with our current beliefs and sensibilities on these specific subject matters.

This show includes a variety of mediums– video, paintings, drawings, and sculpture- all newly made works from this recent residency, where the artists examine and raise questions about (dis)placement and the body, each in their own unique style and approach. Albeit being representational and figurative, the depictions of the body as well as site, are not specific nor identified, in fact, many are decontextualized, making reality even more distant and vague.

In some works, these ambiguous depictions of place and body bring a sense of unease to the viewer, where interiors and exteriors, and the physical and bodiless merge. Yet, there are some works that convey calmness and composure even when the outcome is unknown. It is that tension that speaks directly to the parallels between our everyday contingencies of physical and mental obstacles at large and the artists' expressions and interests. Thus, this exhibition aims to touch on and discuss the following questions: What are the places that cause angst and distress, and those that bring a sense of calmness? And are these places internal or external, real or imaginative? Is it possible to be trapped in our own body? And what or where is the place we feel less trapped and more autonomous?

Participating artists: Avishag Hakimi, Daniella Slonim, Chana Sonya Pekarevich, Talya Peri, Yifat Louv Ganuz, Moshe Sigel, Nadja Shkirat, Neta Zidel, Neta Moses. Noa Rich, Sagi Hackmon, Shira Ben Eliyahu, Shani Avivi, Sara Bracha Blum.