The exhibition "Synthetics" by the artist Aviv Greenberg is dedicated to his sister, who passed away at the beginning of the corona virus, but tells a bigger story - about hiding, cleanliness and the quality of the environment.
Greenberg, as usual, operates on two levels: the personal and the social.
After exploring the concept of cleanliness in previous works, which included the use of a variety of cleaning materials, the beginning of the pandemic and the obsessive preoccupation with disinfection that brought with it, he turned to the research behind the production of those hygiene products, and did so this time as a painter.
Through them he tells a story about secrets, repression and cosmetic beautification of a great tragedy.
"The main part of my occupation around cleaning came from military service in Prison 4," he says.
"For three years, I carried out cleaning procedures there. This was the routine in the prison, and it always marked for me the place that does not really manage to achieve any kind of correction. The whole goal is to return the prisoners to proper service, but we didn't really have the tools to do that. The whole routine was based About cleanliness. Then I developed this understanding, of a repetitive action that does not provide results and that we just do it.
From the exhibition "Synthetics",
"When I started sculpting, I felt that my art exposed me too much, and that I couldn't talk about the things that really occupied me. I would walk around the street with stress in my head, because I keep everything in my stomach and I can't talk about my sister. For 18 years I accompanied her in the shadow of mental disorders. This Something that permeates and affects the family members. It kept us very busy and accompanied us every day - but we couldn't touch it, because we respected her desire for privacy.
"From the moment she passed away, my work with the cleaning materials started to feel irrelevant, because we started talking. In the eulogy I gave at her funeral, I told the whole story, and then I started looking for myself again, after I realized that I had closed accounts with this place of hiding."
"symbol of truth"
The realization that there is no need to hide (not even his sexual orientation, he says) led him to search for what he defines as a "symbol of truth".
He gained access to factory waste sites, where he discovered the exhibits from his past works in a completely different way than the general public, and even himself, are familiar with.
"I was exposed to the factory's waste, and it was an amazing discovery," he explains.
"Imagine that I work with cleaning products as they are on the shelves, and suddenly I received such products - but with defects. So they are distorted, and each one is different and special. And I, as a person who presented these products as if they were art, suddenly I was exposed to a different spectacle. These bottles , which are usually filled with colorful, attractive and branded material, became to look like skeletons, like human organs. "I started working with these materials with nature in mind.
Like dinosaur skeletons are displayed in nature museums.
This display is the product of the two most difficult years I've gone through in my life - without filters."
Greenberg's parallel between the tragedy experienced by his family and the destruction of nature is clear.
The cleaning products, whose job is to putty, sand and polish so that it is "pleasant to the eye", are the ones that create dirt and burn the earth, until it has no choice but to blend in with them in a sad way - nature blends in with the waste, and it is impossible to distinguish what is what.
"My way of reacting and speaking is through silent protests," he says, "but I believe in my ability to enter such bodies and create a change of perception, and encourage movement around green or environmental thought."
The exhibition "Synthetics" is on display at the Corridor Gallery until December 31.
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