Experiment in Forecasting the Mood
Pinchas Zinovich and Asaf Rahat
Curator: Yaniv Shapira
31.08.2012-11.10.2012
The title ‘Experiment in Forecasting the Mood’ originates from the name of one of the works presented at the mutual exhibition of Pinchas Zinovich and Assaf Rahat. The title succeeds in portraying the underline spirit of the exhibition, which draws its strength from the baring of the soul and its visual representation.
The works of Pinches Zinovich (1943-2007) are characterized with confidant hand gestures that fill the entire area of the canvas whilst being restrain and self reflection. At the backbone of his oeuvre, stands a painting that is both “revealing and concealing”, is candid but enigmatic, self proclaimed whilst keeping a secret. From the mid 80’s, the black has increasingly taken on a centric role in Zinovich’s pallet as means to convey feelings of melancholy and somberness. On the dialectics between the strong colorfulness of his paintings and the black, Zinovich illuminated: “it is not like that of Matisse in ‘Le Bonheur de Vivre’, rather, it serves as a covering of the black”. Zinovich’s abstract works are “landscapes of the soul”, which one of the keys for their interpretation is in-bedded in their titles. In ‘Halleluyah (What to Think)’ (2000-2004), presented in this current exhibition, he sets his hope with a praise, however, he immediately clasp to the despairing doubt. The group of works taken from the series ‘the Time of the Flesh’ (2003-2004) indicate the question of the material character of the body and of finiteness, which bring to the surface suppressed anxieties, fears and oppressive feelings.
Assaf Rahat’s (born 1970) works shown at the exhibition carry on his previous series, in which he presented images deriving from the mental realm of dreams, visions and memories. Amongst his memorable artworks are images of fetuses in a womb-like protected space, alongside amorphous and biomorphic shapes, suggesting the beginning of life. The large paper sheets in front of us were made at once, with “quick, intuitive and aggressive hand gesture”. This way of action enables him to capture the ‘moment’, ‘feel’ and ’emotion’, that otherwise might not be obtainable. Rahat inhabits his recent works with hybrid-like creations of sculls and human heads next to winged animals, fish and snakes, which create a dark surrealistic world. Alongside these, appear deformed references to ‘Where is Pluto’, childish rubber duckies and other allusions, which indicate a secret kept with childhood innocents.
The presentation of Zinovich’s and Rahat’s works one next to the other reveals a surprising resemblance between Zinovich’s “emotional abstract” and Rahat’s “mental expressionism”, in painting that derives from private experiences and personal biographies. For a moment, it seems that they posses the emotional quality best described by Edvard Munch, when he stated “By placing paint and drawing lines and shapes that appear to be painted in a rash state, I was looking for a way to transform this state of mind to vibrate as a gramophone record”. The fact these two are from different generations of Israeli art allows to follow a local painting that asks to release itself from the grip of the ‘immediate’- both from the social and political aspect as well as the ‘realness’- of landscape painting, urban landscape or still life; an expression that seeks, if only for a brief hour, to turn the gaze into the depth of the human soul.
Yaniv Shapira
Gallery Talk with artist Assaf Rahat and curator Yaniv Shapira, 05.10.2012
