CREDENZA
A dual show | Gideon Gechtman and Dana Yoeli
Curator: Nira Itzhaki
Dana Yoeli, an established young artist known for her sculpture work and mixed media installations, (hr work is currently on show in T.A museum ) is re-organizing and categorizing knowledge. Her impressive installations resemble objects that originate from historical, ethnographic or archaeological museums.
Yoeli uses objects that have a biographic connotation; sometimes they hold a sociological value as well. She always chooses to change the initial function of the object; she will always transform it in her own hands. The human urge/tendency to represent the past and to visually design its appearance, is a central issue in Yoeli's work.
By politicizing the commemoration culture, the artist wishes to show the forces which connect collective memory to nationalistic ideologies. A nostalgic glaze or a devious fabrication, both are found in Yoeli's works.
Gideon Gechtman is known as a major iconic figure in the Israeli art world (retrospective exhibition in Israel museum 2013, recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007 by the Ministry of Culture, past away 2008). Since the early 70's till his last works, Gechtman researched the relationship between the origin and its representations, between the authentic and the fake.
A retrospective view on Gechtman's work reveals the conflict between the original material and its substitute - marble and Formica/ cloth and sticker/ leather and vinyl. A main question which rises in his works: why is our culture filled with substitutes and what are the far reaching implications of their appearance.
The exhibition is a first platform for a grand meeting between two artists who deal with the emotional code of the object, and the national significance of casting content into objects. The connection between these two artists, though coming from different generations and different personal backgrounds deepens the political dimension of nostalgia and memory which is held in the art works.
CREDENZA is a living room side commode, originally invented in Italy, which is used to display decorative items and associated always with wooden design, a decorative stage for decoration only.