ALL READY MADE
Ala d'Amico, Michelle C. Gevint,
Yaron Lapid and Ronit Porat
Curator: Netta Laufer
13.12.2018 - 27.1.2019
All ready made is a group exhibition examining the use of readymades in photography as the photographer’s central research process. Each existing photograph bears a history; it is charged with data belonging to the moment it was created, perhaps as part of historical testimony or a family or national archive. All of the artists participating in this exhibition have appropriated found images as part of their research. The research process is based on deconstruction and (re)construction of a system of representation through diverse working methods and different degrees of intervention in existing images. The images obtained constitute a synthesis of the sign, the interpretive process, and the creation of meaning through examining and subverting concepts such as ‘original,’’ replication,’ ‘appropriation,’ ‘history,’ ‘memory,’ and ‘place.’ The artist’s references to these concepts creates communication with the viewer. The current exhibition strives to connect the viewer to the artist’s actions as the artist reconsiders her relationship to the camera as the main mediator in creating the image. Through the deconstruction and combination of photographic readymades, an atemporal space can be created, moving between past and present to form a new reading of the representations. Ala d’Amico examines the dimension of time and memory through material, exploring its relationship with the historical DNA it bears. The images in her work are constantly changing and fading away. Michelle Claire Gevint creates cognitive dissonance through her digital interventions in Brutalist architectural structures. Ronit Porat stages a system of images and representations rooted in a dramatic historical narrative, enabling a new time to be formed in the space. Yaron Lapid engages in issues of identity through the creation of a relationship between present and absent in the image, facilitating the viewers’ recharging it anew with meaning. Ala d'Amico / Sasso Sasso narrates the story of travertine, the rock that traditionally built Rome. This series pivots around the relationship between time and its effect on materials and history. The two main themes that work in parallel are the memories triggered by a small piece of travertine found accidentally in the street of New York, and time, which is measured by the fading and deterioration of the final prints. Rocks are constant reminders of the presence of our past. Their story, like ours, is imprinted in their own structure. In contrast with the structure and dimension of the small found stone, the images that d'Amico used from a different source like history books, Google, and more, are large and are silkscreened on fragile sheets of newsprint. Newsprint is a manufactured product condensed with acid; exposure to factors such as light it will change appearance. Since the images are printed on it and are composed of low-quality tint, blue fountain pen ink, and graphite, the images will inevitably and slowly fade away. It is an attempt to investigate history while materializing an emotion. While the stone represents a testimony of history, the print becomes a testimony of an image. Michelle C. Gevint / Urban Speculation Urban Speculation is a recreated fictitious urban environment. In Gevint’s own words, “My focus is a collaged architecture, which stands as a metaphor for a failed promise. The process includes collaging internet-based imagery that references Modernism, a style affiliated with forms of Utopian thought which strived to better human life through designing space. By creating fictitious collages, I perpetuate the failure of Utopian architecture. These uncanny structures reflect on the power of the cultural archetype in a contemporary context and examine social consciousness lingering between past - future, Utopia -dystopia.” Ronit Porat / Mr. Ulbrich and Miss Neumann In Mr. Ulbrich and Miss Neumann, Porat investigates the physicality and history of places and people through things left behind. She examines the ways in which photographs resonate with memory to create pain and a sense of belonging. Her research is based on links between various sources (documents, old postcards, magazines, maps, slides) and her personal expressiveness. The artist operates like a crime scene investigator, searching for clues to the way in which the past penetrates into the present: “I ‘nose around’ the past in order to gather visual sources to attempt to interpret the present. I work with archival materials to re-shape the issues intriguing me, based on a conscious awareness of the legacy of the images I enter.” Her practice over the past seven years has been based on historical research, raising questions about the medium of photography and the varied possible pathways of creating with and against photography in the contemporary era. The images and narratives she creates and unfolds are drawn from a variety of sources from the interwar period. Using archives of collective memories and autobiographical imagery, her work traces the flourishing of women photographers in the late 1930s in Europe as well as a study of photography itself, which became acceptable following the spread of the psychoanalytic dialogue and was made possible thanks to technological developments that made photography more accessible. “Through my work, I delineate the process of transforming the camera into the instrument of personal research placing the photographer’s identity at its center. The processes of displacing these memories from their source and connecting them to form a new narrative is an attempt to engage in biography as a fluid, free collection of alternative data״. Yaron Lapid / Partial Moments In Partial Moments, Yaron Lapid diligently collects found photos from English family archives. He constructs and then deconstructs their meaning by using strategies of selective grouping and masking to allow or deny the viewer straightforward observational rights into the images. As the images are re-interpreted through the eyes of non-native, Lapid questions, disrupts and navigates our viewing so that we are forced to examine these images differently. We find our eyes wandering to details we may have previously overlooked, recognizing emotions, relations and narratives. Moving between the artistic and the documenting act, Lapid's bold use of masking underscores the fragility and construct of these images while exploring the nature of time itself and its role within photography.