The Haifa Museum of Art is proud to present a new cluster of exhibitions, including eight solo exhibitions and two group shows of leading contemporary Israeli artists. The second floor of the museum will house an exhibition showing works from the rich collection of the Haifa Museum of Art. The exhibitions seek to illuminate the understanding of the concept of “place” in Israeli art.
How does the artist’s presence in the country, or absence from it, impact the representation of the “Israeli place” in relation to the experience of the “here and now”? The works evince the tension that exists between art that is activist and socio-politically oriented, and art that seeks the realms of dream and fantasy.
The group exhibition The Epoch of Space considers the issue of distance with reference to the concept of “the sublime.” Romanticism described the experience of the sublime in the face of natural forces that threaten the integrity of the subject. Postmodern painting revisits “sublime” themes and formats while charging them with a sense of horror and catastrophe. The contemporary discourse on the issue of “here” versus “there” takes us to exotic and dark spaces of the sublime. The painter of the “new sublime” remains in the studio, paints a concept of conventional nature, towards which he expresses a sense of alienated longing as something lost. He depicts a super-space that is a compressed, depth-less void. Participating artists: Nogah Engler, Noga Schatz, Eliezer Sonnenschein, Sharon Yaari, Orit Hofshi, Larry Abramson and Shai Zurim.