Book Launch and Opening: Thursday 07.01.2016
Chelouche Gallery is honored to invite you to the launch of the new artist book “Nadav Weissman 2007-2015” on Thursday 07.01.2016, 8:00pm at Chelouche Gallery, Tel Aviv. During the launch speeches will be held by: Tali Tamir, Keren Goldberg and Avshalom Suliman. On the occasion of the book launch Chelouche Gallery will open Nadav Weissman’s solo exhibition “There is No Such Place”. The exhibition features an installation, previously on show at Lohamei HaGeta’ot Gallery, as part of the Oscar Hendler Award for 2014 prize, curated by Michal Horowitz and Yeshayahu ish Gabay. The exhibition “There is No Such Place” was produced with the support of The Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts. The book was published thanks to the support of MiFal HaPayis.
Nadav Weissman 2007-2015 is a comprehensive book that showcases the artist’s work of these years throughout his various extensive installations. The book includes two new essays by Tali Tamir and Keren Goldberg and beautiful photos documenting the artworks and different installations. Languages: Hebrew and English.
From the book:
“The absence of continuity, the reflection of the past (childhood) in the present (adulthood), fragmentation and hybridity – all these attributes are reflected in Weissman’s complex installations, which call for an allegorical reading. Rather than joining together in a decipherable plot or narrative, the upside-down trees, the landscape segments, buildings, posts, lawns and figures are left to themselves, standing for a world deprived of its illusion of unity. In Weissman’s inventory of images, based in the 2000’s, the original, complete copy does not exist. The world he constructs is fragmentary, straddling reality and delusion, as a product of an onslaught of images in a technological world that no more distinguishes narrative from script.”
– Tali Tamir
In the exhibition “There is No Such Place” Weissman explores the intersection of the human body and urban landscape. The human form transforms to an architectural structure, landscapes into body parts and together they compose an awry humanoid playground. Weissman creates an experience that combines the familiar with the strange, the obvious with the enigmatic and the visible with the invisible. The images, structures and objects in the installation are released from the external reality, yet do not ignore it- the common hierarchies of material, form and proportion communicate with various cultural references and produce a complex experience. These transitions are constructed out of Weissman’s unique and private syntax and lexicon, which echo, suggest and refer to core issues of the cultural fabric beyond the artistic discourse.
“…in ‘There is No Such Place’, the non-existent place, normal proportions are distorted, while the mimetic impulse reaches an extreme: the figures and buildings receive the same size, the same representational translation. The body merges with the building, the track, the road and the staircase; man becomes a construction site.”
– Keren Goldberg (from Nadav Weissman 2007-2015)
Nadav Weissman, born 1969, lives and works in Tel Aviv. Winner of the Oscar Hendler Award for 2014, Ministry of Education and Culture Award for distinction in the visual arts, 2005, and a scholarship for young artists, from the Israeli Lottery – Mif’al Hapa’is, Israel, 2002.
Wiessman exhibited numerous solo shows and participated in distinct worldly exhibitions in Israel and abroad, in venues such as: Kabe Contemporary Miami, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Musac, Leon, the National Museum Taiwan, and Arco Madrid.
About the Speakers:
Tali Tamir is an independent curator that specializes in contemporary art and Israeli Art History and Culture. She launched her career as a curator in 1991, with her exhibition “Solar Eclipse” at Bugrashov gallery, marking two years of the first Intifada. Between 1994-2004 Tamir was the curator of the Kibbutz Gallery, where she followed new motifs in the art of the Kibbutz. In 2005-2010 she served as the curator of the Nahum Gutman Museum, opening its gates to contemporary artists alongside Gutman’s works. During her work at the specific institutions Tamir independently curated shows at leading institutions such as the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Israel Museum, Museum of art Ein Harod, Petach Tikva Museum of Art and more. In recent years she is engaged with curatorial education and publications of books and essays. She is the recipient of the Israeli Minister of Culture Award for a Curator, 2010.
Keren Goldberg is an independent writer and art critic. She received her Masters in Critical Writing from Royal College of Art, London, and writes regularly to international magazines such as ArtReview, Mousse, art-agenda, Frieze and ARTnews.
Avshalom Suliman – Artist and Educator. Has a BFA and MFA from the Bezalel Academy for Art and Design. He had participated in numerus exhibitions in Israel. His articles had been published in books and catalogs amongst are: Gideon Gechtman, Masha Zusman and Nadav Weissman.
