If We Come Closer

 

Works from the Doron Sebbag Art Collection, ORS Ltd.

Ramat Hasharon Gallery for contemporary Art

November 2022 – February 2023

 

The exhibition “If We Come Closer” groups works by Israeli and international artists, created in diverse media over three decades. The earliest was created in 1987, and the latest—in 2017. Spanning works from all years of the collection’s existence, the exhibition does not seek to classify them chronologically, according to their date of purchase or time of creation, but to capture a contemporary state of mind attesting to human existence.

The selected works focus on the human figure, as represented in the collection over the years, proposing a contemporary interpretation of the emotional and psychological states it articulates. All of them feature solitary human figures; portraits of individuals detached from a familiar background, a concrete context, or a specific time and place. The act of decontextualization reinforces the ability to focus on the figures’ inner, emotional world, while delving into the essence and meaning of the present gaze, the internal gaze as well as the one turned outward. Perhaps in keeping with the spirit of the time—at the close of a global pandemic, which dictated social isolation, called for a reexamination of relationships, and increased the need for contact and closeness—the works in the exhibition are organized around a psychological axis, whose one pole is loneliness, rootlessness, and alienation, and its other pole—pining and longing. Some reveal an instinctive, sensual, and seductive tone, with a disconcerting erotic shade or the shadow of restrained violence sometimes creeping in. Others convey a pensive, contemplative, almost meditative atmosphere. Some of the figures are devoid of facial features or emotional expression, some are indrawn and restrained, while others are immersed in prayer.

It seems that the contemporary exegetic view proposed in the exhibition, which is inevitably influenced by this point in time, portrays a diverse collection, ranging between a passion for beauty, color, material and the body, on one hand, and a stylistic minimalism, material emptiness, and an aspiration for spiritual transcendence, on the other; a collection ranging from temptation to yearning.

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The exhibition is accompanied by two new sound workd commissioned and created especially for it under the guidance of the curators and throught community collaboration with 12th grade visual art students at Alon High School, Ramat Hasharon. In a desire to add a layer of young, current sound to the selection of works on view, most of which were created before they were born, the studetnts were invited to write personal-fictional stories from their point of view as teenagers, pertaining to ten figures starring in selected works, and record them in their voices. These stories resonate in the gallery, alongside artistic commentary on ten additional works, offering a path of observation centered on the notion of longing.

 

Speaking From the collection: site specific sound work

Artist: Sharon Glazberg

 

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