In this exhibition artist Sarit Achtenberg provides a visual memoir moving along the seam between the female body that remembers and the one undergoing transformation. The intergenerational transfer at the heart of the exhibition enfolds through a metamorphosis of childhood memories and social conditioning. Photographs of intimate moments and maternal-feminine gestures taken from family albums, alongside feelings and memories seared into the body, serving as the basis for a collage of images whose presence continues to accompany women from childhood to adulthood. The artistic act transforms voices from the past into living manifestations in the present. The ties between mother and daughter – and between daughter and her children when the daughter herself becomes a mother – are intertwined within a dual position of responsibility and release, like a gesture of farewell from one body to another, in a delicate movement between attachment and relinquishment, between continuity and change.
From a retrospective perspective, the artist still sees the nuclear family as a warm, comforting and protective place. Nonetheless, the difficulties, traumas and tensions she experienced as a child and adolescent are reawakened with new insight and a profound sense of sincere reconciliation to the point of pain. Each component of the exhibition carries the understanding that reality is more complex than “the complete picture”. This is apparent in the oil paintings featuring distinct lines set against a black backdrop, in the blotchy and colorful drawings on disconnected limbs and in the video work “Lesifofo”, in which the mature artist dances to the sounds of alternative rock music that cannot be heard. Instead, in the background we hear the artist’s mother singing in French. The words of this children’s song, which the mother sang to her daughter when she was a child, describe small marionettes dancing on strings. The song stands in stark contrast to the daring body movements of the artist, who seeks to shake off the past, break free and redefine herself.
In moving from the personal to the social sphere, Achtenberg describes a transformational journey from a wounded to a liberated body, from an indelible mark to layers that can be sloughed off and regenerated. Hers is a discourse of control, fracture and healing that provides an opportunity to move forward from the depths of the wound and with a gentle and brave touch to cultivate a new movement toward freedom, hope and strength.
Avital Katz
Exhibition Curator
