Exhibitions

The Bible says: "Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain" (Proverbs, 31, 30). It seems our culture prefers to reject this ancient wisdom, preferring the lie and the deceptive outward appearance, as if it were the obvious choice. In this context, art historian Gideon Ofrat writes that "commercials never stop lying to us […] politicians never stop offering false promises before elections, in empty 'visions of peace'; public relations experts and spokesmen have become con-artists on retainers. Wherever we turn, whenever we open our eyes and our ears – lies surround us. It is as if we have accepted non-truth as the verdict of our existence."

Today's art world, in Israel and worldwide, evinces an increased interest in the intersection of art and social activism. Known as artivism, this new form of expression aspires to blend art and activism in equal degree. Contemporary art criticism emphasizes the power of art to function as an arena for political protest. Artistic activism, a new phenomenon that has become a staple of our time, is different from the type of critical art that dominated modernist discourse in the 20th century, as pointed out by curator and philosopher Boris Grois.

The new cluster of exhibitions presents eleven new exhibitions, five of them solo exhibitions and six group exhibitions. The exhibitions presents works by seventy Israeli and international artists. The current cluster of exhibitions deals with the vanishing boundary between the public and private spheres, exhibitionism, narcissism and voyeurism, which are some of the hottest topics of the twenty-first century.

We are currently living in a state of emergency, as described by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. This is a state in which the government presents the limitation of personal liberties as an inevitable step for maintaining national freedom. Different from situations of anarchy or chaos, the suspension of law is given legal basis. This practice has become central to many democratic countries. Western democracy have developed a tendency not to declare a state of emergency explicitly.