Passage International Art Encounters
Project No.1
Patrick Raynaud and Motti Mizrachi
23.11.96 – 20.12.96
Published by: Chelouche Gallery, Tel Aviv
“Passage” International Art Encounters
Nira Itzhaki
“Passage” is a project where the exhibition space becomes international, with no borders, where Israeli artists meet artists from aboard, who create in a similar artistic language. It is an international meeting-point to which galleries, curators, museum directors, art critics, artists and collectors are invited to hold a two-way dialogue, share ideas and hold joint exhibitions.
“Passage” is intended to be a regularly recurring artistic event which is lively and exciting, where the parallels of time and space meet and new artistic connections are created in a dynamic structure of cultural processes and artistic cultural memory.
This forum is a continuation of the Chelouche Gallery activities during bthe past years of exchanging artists and exhibitions and of participating in international art events in order to expand the possibilities of art shows and holding a genuine dialogue, in real time, in the international art world.
The joint exhibition of the Israeli artist Motti Mizrachi and the Frrench artist Patrick Raynaud, which takes place as part of the project “Passage”, is realised together with Dr. Lóránd Hegyi, the director of the Museum of Modern Art in Vienna.
“Passage”: Motti Mizrachi and Patrick Raynaud
Dr. Lóránd Hegyi
Materiality and immateriality, body and mind, struggle and transcendental peace, and concurrently, the disturbing ambivalence of coexisting banal, simple objects and spiritual signs characterize the works of Motti Mizrachi and Patrick Raynaud. The constant latent tension, the feeling of being self-dependent, the signs which indicate dangers and the dramatic presence of sensual objects which sensitize yhe different perceptions – connecting between a strong and intentionally heightened feeling of the body and the intellectual contexts – these moments can be found with both artists. Just as amazing is the dialogue with light as a metaphora, which, as a catalys connects the different refrences with signal systems. In this manner a “passage” is created where the artist can wangle between sophisticated culture and the banal ordinary culture, in search of his place and role.
Dout and conviction, intellectual restlessness and harmony, skepticism and belief, fragility and monumentality, transitoriness and timelessness all exist side by side and are unseparable in the artistic situation of the “passage”, where people meet, languages mix, cultural archetypes are confronted with the bright reality of the aimless, spontaneous lack of involvement.
The life of the “passage” has no objective and will, is true and discernible; it is at the same time heavy and light, irresponsible and suffering, accidental and fateful, reality and illusion. This almost unbearable complexity and ambivalence stands at the center of Motti Mizrachi and Patrick Raynaud offers an interpretation process, where the observer does not only see the “passage” as the natural place of the artist, but can also realize his own dialogues and confrontations.
