Virtual exhibition
Adi Weizmann examines the trivial scenes in our living space via the lens of her camera. Her gaze frames coincidental events with a broad emotional perspective of pain, longing, identification or empathy for the world, while she focuses on generating new objects of observation. The Duchamp readymades created by reality are translated into photographs that themselves constitute new objects. One example of this can be seen in the poetic scene featuring a white Ikea couch squashed between a parked car and an industrial green garbage disposal bin. Another photograph depicts the concept of the family by means of an upholstered old-fashioned living room suite and a single seat taken from a car that wait together on an asphalt driveway under a metal awning. The lack of any human figures is prominent in these photographs, while the human presence finds expression in the remains of humanmade objects in the photographed space.
The work of Adi Weizmann focuses on perpetuating the images of objects that have been taken out of their original context and make a guest appearance in a different scene with a new and strange background. One example is the stump of a fallen tree that arouses pain and compassion for having been severed while still alive and flourishing. Its isolated position on the edge of the sidewalk behind a parked car kindles identification. Another glance at the power of nature can be seen in the image of lettuce growing out of plastic sheeting and in the photograph of an earthenware jug cracked by the strength of the soil that has been packed into it. There is something disturbing about this photograph, in which the jug’s handle has been sprayed in red, reminiscent of the mark of Cain.
Many of the scenes are absurd, with the most absurd scene depicting a large drawing of waves planted in the stone fence of a typical housing project building. This scene causes the viewer to wonder about the way in which art relates to space and to ponder which of its representations are the objects of the residents’ desires. The artist appears to point out that the social representation in a photograph is more trustworthy than a drawing used as a means of social criticism. Indeed, a prominent layer of criticism is apparent in her work. Adi Weizmann offers us a cup of instant coffee with sugar from an improvised kitchen at the entrance to a store in the Neve Shaanan neighborhood, while not forgetting to include a large blue Magen David in the photograph.
The name of the exhibition refers to the photograph of a pita with a single bite taken out of it that has been placed on a stone fence. A triangular composition of an urban landscape created by intersecting perspective lines stands out in the background. In another photograph, the view through a perpendicular eye-shaped opening torn in a black sheet whose texture appears to be woven gives the impression of glancing through an eye socket, with the tree reflected through it resembling the pupil. Another look reveals a building site in the distance with three workers = the only human figures in the exhibition. In yet another photograph, the artist focuses on a dwarf pine tree that seems to have been planted too close to the wall of a residential building yet has climbed up to the second floor, erect and strong.
Izi Itzhak Civre
Exhibition Curator