What do you think of when you hear the word "monster"?
The answer to this question is at the center of a new exhibition, "La-Colture: Monsters", a poster exhibition of 58 artists, who were invited to present their personal interpretation of the word through a rich variety of techniques such as illustration, photography, sculpture, printmaking and more.
You can see the results in the alleys of Old Jaffa, in the light boxes gallery, in an exhibition that will open on October 13, curated by Itai Blaish.
Also at the festive opening event: a special pop-up store from Studio Gelada, which will sell catalogs of the exhibition, prints and shirts of Israeli illustrators and more.
Amos Zoertz
"After the corona and the return to life, we thought about how we find a topic that is both serious and can turn inward, both funny and fun and light - something that we don't say, 'we've already been talked to about this.' And for all the consequences of this period. We were looking for something a little more fun, and we decided to interpret monsters, something that in culture can also be something cute, also something that is part of folk tales, also something scary, or a representation of something in our lives that we don't like," says Itai Blaish , the curator of the exhibition, who is also the founder of La Culteur, a graphic designer specializing in social media and cultural event branding, and serves as a curator and consultant for organizations and exhibitions, with an emphasis on visual-graphic art.
"Don't forget that in Hebrew we often use the word 'monster' as something big, and we realized that this would be the right point to leave it, and let the artists express themselves with all the dissonance and challenges they have had in the last two years. We thought that some of them would want to be funny and some would be dark and scary."
And what did you discover?
"There were a lot of lovely works, also of the expected things that I was waiting for: scary monsters, like Katia Bryudin's work, a monster that is a tangle of thorns. On the other hand, there is Aviv Shamir's monster, which is a lovely illustration of someone nervous who has run out of money, something that we can all identify with him (laughs). On the other hand, there were a lot of works like Niv Tashvi's, a kind of very dim illustration that you can identify with on felt at home, in Corona or alone, which is alone in the body alone in life."
Aviv Shamir
After this difficult period, maybe there was something in this work that also became a therapeutic tool for those artists, and maybe it will also pass on to us, the viewers?
"You're absolutely right. When we started working on the curations we were looking for a text, a reference to start with, and instead of going to academic texts, this time I did a little wandering on the web and found a quote on Twitter by Guillermo del Toro, a famous film director ("Pan's Labyrinth", "Pacific Rim") and he The director of the monsters really, who says that actually the way an artist manages to make himself feel better or reconcile contradictions within himself is to look for and create monsters.
Ben Ryback
"Instead of not knowing what we are up against as artists, we build these monsters in our heads, to fight them, or to help them. So I feel that this is the point with which the artists identified, and I think the viewers will identify with it as well. That's why we made a postcard catalog of all 58 monsters that go into a box, and you can play with it."
If I were to ask you for your personal interpretation of the monster?
"Then you would probably accept a person, a classic person, honestly, we are the main monster. In the end, if you look at the climate crisis and what is happening in the world, the war between Ukraine and Russia, we are the scary monsters that make the mess."
"We are the main monster."
Curator of the exhibition Itai Blaish, photo: Merav Ben Lulu
"La-Colture: Monsters"
Poster exhibition at the light box gallery
In the alleys of old Jaffa
Curator: Itai Blaish
Grand opening: Thursday, 13.10.22 at 18:00
Cafe Kedem, 1 Pisces Alley
Lock: 31.12.22
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