HERITAGE POP-UP

ID festival, Berlin

opening: 16.10 « 18:00

16-18.10.2015

Curator

Lior Wilentzik

Artists

Alma Alloro

Dorit Bialer

Mia Gourvitch

Lior Wilentzik

Gabriel S Moses

Assaf Abutbul

Press release

A double-sided wooden wall divides the hall into two exhibition spaces which serve as a touring group installation. The current show showcases paper art works only: digital print, drawing and photography.  Parts of the wall are decorated with a sticker design which is somewhat reminiscent of the early vision of Bezalel. Its style echoes the lines of German Jewish illustrator Ephraim Moshe Lilien, who was considered “the first Zionist artist” and is also known for his design of the Bezalel logo.

Each of the 6 presenting artists created a collection of graphic stations in time; a set of virtual heritages. Diasporic artists are creators who live in a transient multicultural environment and so the digital sphere is the most stable, familiar and fruitful workspace for them to thrive in. 

The current works of the exhibiting artists create personal time lines By appropriating symbols which contain a nostalgic “collective cargo” of what could be defined as “Israeliana” – and with often ironic, free use of these symbols – the show creates visual routes in time, influenced by the cultural exchanges experienced in the process of migration. 

The artists use visual languages with a common ground, all referring to former nationalistic attributes of European and Israeli Jewish culture: landscape, Hebrew typography, artifacts and items from daily life. Out of these elements, a new set of signs is then “digitally carved and crafted” into being. 

The result is a Pop-up arrangement which offers a snapshot; a glimpse into the artists’ humorous and intriguing thoughts regarding the limits of an identity designed to expand.