Exhibitions

Much has been written on the subject of feminist solidarity, as a formative value that provides the political subject with a secure base from which to promote social struggles in various arenas. The concept of "solidarity," in its various meanings, has served in recent years as a framework for discussions in the feminist community. The call for solidarity is based upon the demand to dismantle supposedly competition in relations between women.

"The age of anxiety," "the culture of fear," the "risk society" – all these terms confirm the centrality of fear in our times. The increasing use of the term "risk" highlights the contemporary tendency to treat a wide range of phenomena as threatening and dangerous. Art reacts to this climate on both the private and the collective levels, engaging with an array of threats connected to violence, political power, and more.

The present period, when many of us are alone and confined to one room, is perhaps a time to contemplate depictions of "horror rooms" familiar from art history. Throughout this history we encounter images of empty, cold rooms conveying a sense of loneliness, insecurity, and fear. A special historical place is reserved for depictions of sealed rooms, lacking windows or doors, such as prison cells, graves, churches, theaters, reading rooms, or collection chambers. These spaces do not allow the occupant to gaze outside, illuminating only that which lies within.

In his work Black Milk, Belu-Simion Fainaru invites the viewer to contemplate a work that is densely detailed yet whose characteristics are minimal, emphasizing a universal dimension. The black, toxic machine oil, threatening and repelling, is held in white, delicate porcelain utensils with understated decorations. The table and chairs belong to the past, to the artist's parents' living room. This is a forgotten world – one in which we do not await a ghost meal, a meal that will never take place. The sense of absence and nothingness is a continuation of the installation Belongs Nowhere and to Another Time, exhibited at the 2019 Venice Biennale, where Fainaru was chosen to represent Romania.

The coronavirus crisis and its widespread effects have revealed the fragility of our existence in our most private spaces, as well as in the general social order. This is a period of fear and insecurity, yet also one of potential insight. It allows us to see through the cracks in the foundations of our existence and reexamine them, though the encounter may be distressful and shocking.

It is surprising to find that virtual space is in fact based on ancient cultural principles. A strange space, with no taste or smell, wind or sun – a binary space made up mostly of combinations of the numbers 1 and 0, that we experience through a bright screen, as if peering through a "window". Still, this "environment" is based on the same mathematical principles that underlie our perception of space and the science of perspective as they were developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The illusion of a familiar space that functions according to familiar laws conceals the reality of a virtual environment, in which our body has no existence, and neither do our physical experiences or specific viewpoint.

Between March and May 2020, the Israeli government declared a "state of emergency" to handle the threat of a new, little-understood epidemic. A series of restrictions were imposed, including physical policing, isolation, and social distancing. The new norms entailed by the coronavirus crisis began to seep into public life, like the virus itself.
This exhibition presents works by a group of photographers, created in response to the new way of life forced on the public.