Haimi Fenichel, Heap, 2024, site-specific version of Mound (2018), construction, manipulated sand

ON THE MARGINS
MICHAL SHAMIR AND HAIMI FENICHEL: A DUOSOLO EXHIBITION

Curatorial Advisory: Tami Katz-Freiman

 

A pile of sand protruding from an arched niche, a machine blowing soap bubbles that smash into a wall, a broken ceiling fan partially painted in gold, books made of Ytong blocks, a hollow block wall partition, an iron rod covered with porcelain snails, anti-pigeon spikes transformed into a golden lattice, a hint of an elevator repeatedly descending into the unknown, dozens of pencil drawings on crumpled parchment paper, ash remains after burning, golden hands and an IKEA cloud lighting cluster – these are part of the minimalist repertoire presented in a joint exhibition of Michal Shamir and Haimi Fenichel.

 

Unlike previous duo exhibitions held in the gallery that allowed the architectural space to create separation between the artists, here, intentionally, there is no division. The installation was conceived jointly, and the works intermingle and flow into each other’s space. This is a duo-solo exhibition — a conceptual collaboration on the threshold of a shared installation.

 

An exhibition is rarely born by itself, making the curatorial act redundant. “On the Margins” is like that. From the moment the pairing was born from Michal Shamir’s intuitive choice of Haimi Fenichel, nothing more than a few touches, reduction, focus, and precision were needed to create the spark. The works featured here are partly new, some are new versions of previous works and some have been shown in past exhibitions. Their selection was made in alignment with the connection points between the two artists and their fittingness to the space. For example, Fenichel’s Heap (2024) adapted to the entrance arch, is a new version of Mound (2018), presented at the Herzliya Museum as part of his solo exhibition. Swarm (2007-2018) was also shown in the same exhibition, but this time, the iron rod appears to have collapsed and lies on the gallery floor. Shamir’s video work Ash (2009) was also exhibited at the Herzliya Museum as part of her solo exhibition and is projected now on the gallery’s storage room door.

The magic lies in the welding, in the fusion between two artists from different generations who try to capture the same elusive entity, but do so in opposite ways. Both strive to capture the intangibility of life, the beauty of the familiar and the neglected. Both work with generic elements, both share a love for handcraft and both share meticulous precision in the smallest of details. However, some works appear to have been created nonchalantly and glued together with a mere splash of saliva, while others reveal themselves as the product of countless hours of intensive handwork.

At first glance, the entire exhibition appears as a collection of mundane ready-made objects, raw materials devoid of glamor and beauty, things collected randomly on the suburbs’ outskirts, echoing the grey and depressing aesthetics of Arte Povera. A second look will reveal that Shamir is treating the ready-made with a compassionate hand – the fan and the cast hands are washed in gold, glowing in their prosaic misery; the crumpled parchment papers, some bearing mold traces from a studio flood, look as if they were rescued from disposal. They carry delicate and meticulous drawings of body parts, animals, mundane texts, and unimportant objects copied over years with endless patience from online shopping sites. Here and there, golden flecks shimmer on them too. In contrast, in Fenichel’s works, everything that appears as ready-made is the product of painstaking handcraft. Everything that looks mundane and generic is deceptive, misleading to the eye. The sand mound was made by gluing filtered construction sand bit by bit, and is actually a shell over a hollow construction; the concrete-like brick wall is also hollow and fragile, thin as lace; The snails that cling to the iron pole like parasites are made of thousands of hand-painted porcelain casts. Everything is processed with virtuosity, glowing in its uniqueness.

Thematically, earth, water, wind, and fire could be organizing axes (also) of this exhibition. Each of these four elements is represented in the exhibition with focused, minimalist concentration. The secret of reduction and the large intervals between the works are meant to activate the viewer’s inner attention that transcends time. As in Japanese haiku poems, which use simple and few words to deal with the changing and transient present moment, here too, the wonder is in the air between the words, between the works.

 

On the margins of things – while outside destructive winds have been raging for over a year, disaster following disaster from revenge to revenge, and the hostages still in the tunnels – everyday objects are treated as a reminder of the purposeless act of art-making, as a poetic metaphor for fragments of life, for things that remained.  When they are mended and carefully rehabilitated with a compassionate hand, they might allow a glimmer of hope. Perhaps, in such a turbulent and unbearably difficult time, these are not at all the margins of things, but rather their very core.

 

“Electric fan

Its wings are large

Now resting”
(Yamaguchi)

 

 

Michal Shamir (1957), one of Israel’s most prominent artists, represented by Chelouche Gallery for three decades, graduated from HaMidrash and holds an MFA from the School of Visual Art, New York (1987). Shamir currently heads the School of Art, Society, and Culture at Sapir Academic College. Shamir has exhibited in Israel and abroad, among others at the Ramat Gan Museum, the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, the Haifa Museum of Art, the Ein Harod Museum, and the Bass Museum, Miami Beach. Shamir won numerous awards for her work, among them the Young Artist Award (1984), the Creative Encouragement Award (1999), and the Culture and Education Award for an Israeli Artist (2004).

 

Haimi Fenichel (1972), a prominent sculptor and installation artist, graduated with his BFA from the Department of Ceramic and Glass Design, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem (2002) and MFA at the University of Haifa (2021). Fenichel exhibited in Israel and abroad, among others at the Haifa Museum of Art, the Petah Tikva Museum of Art, the Israel Museum, the Tel Aviv Museum, HaMidrasha Gallery, Tel Aviv, ICA Tel Aviv, The London Jewish Museum, Goethe Institute, Bulgaria, Sunny Art Museum, London, Orangery Museum, Paris, American House, Madrid. Fenichel has won numerous awards, including the Young Artist Award (2007), the Creative Encouragement Award (2014), and the Israeli Ministry of Education and Culture’s Young Artist Award (2017).

On the Margins: Michal Shamir & Haimi Fenichel

Chelouche Gallery for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv-Yafo

November 8 - December 14, 2024

A duo-solo exhibition of Michal Shamir and Haimi Fenichel – a conceptual collaboration on the threshold of a shared installation in which the works intermingle and flow into each other’s space.  

 

The works featured are partly new, some are new versions of previous works and some have been shown in past exhibitions. Their selection was made in alignment with the connection points between the two artists and their fittingness to the space.  

The magic lies in the welding, in the fusion between two artists from different generations who try to capture the same elusive entity, but do so in opposite ways. Both strive to capture the intangibility of life, the beauty of the familiar and the neglected. Both work with generic elements, both share a love for handcraft and both share meticulous precision in the smallest of details. However, some works appear to have been created nonchalantly and glued together with a mere splash of saliva, while others reveal themselves as the product of countless hours of intensive handwork.

 

On the margins of things – while outside destructive winds have been raging for over a year, disaster following disaster from revenge to revenge, and the hostages still in the tunnels – everyday objects are treated as a reminder of the purposeless act of art-making, as a poetic metaphor for fragments of life, for things that remained.  When they are mended and carefully rehabilitated with a compassionate hand, they might allow a glimmer of hope. Perhaps, in such a turbulent and unbearably difficult time, these are not at all the margins of things, but rather their very core.

BACK

ON THE MARGINS
MICHAL SHAMIR AND HAIMI FENICHEL: A DUOSOLO EXHIBITION

Curatorial Advisory: Tami Katz-Freiman

 

A pile of sand protruding from an arched niche, a machine blowing soap bubbles that smash into a wall, a broken ceiling fan partially painted in gold, books made of Ytong blocks, a hollow block wall partition, an iron rod covered with porcelain snails, anti-pigeon spikes transformed into a golden lattice, a hint of an elevator repeatedly descending into the unknown, dozens of pencil drawings on crumpled parchment paper, ash remains after burning, golden hands and an IKEA cloud lighting cluster – these are part of the minimalist repertoire presented in a joint exhibition of Michal Shamir and Haimi Fenichel.

 

Unlike previous duo exhibitions held in the gallery that allowed the architectural space to create separation between the artists, here, intentionally, there is no division. The installation was conceived jointly, and the works intermingle and flow into each other’s space. This is a duo-solo exhibition — a conceptual collaboration on the threshold of a shared installation.

 

An exhibition is rarely born by itself, making the curatorial act redundant. “On the Margins” is like that. From the moment the pairing was born from Michal Shamir’s intuitive choice of Haimi Fenichel, nothing more than a few touches, reduction, focus, and precision were needed to create the spark. The works featured here are partly new, some are new versions of previous works and some have been shown in past exhibitions. Their selection was made in alignment with the connection points between the two artists and their fittingness to the space. For example, Fenichel’s Heap (2024) adapted to the entrance arch, is a new version of Mound (2018), presented at the Herzliya Museum as part of his solo exhibition. Swarm (2007-2018) was also shown in the same exhibition, but this time, the iron rod appears to have collapsed and lies on the gallery floor. Shamir’s video work Ash (2009) was also exhibited at the Herzliya Museum as part of her solo exhibition and is projected now on the gallery’s storage room door.

The magic lies in the welding, in the fusion between two artists from different generations who try to capture the same elusive entity, but do so in opposite ways. Both strive to capture the intangibility of life, the beauty of the familiar and the neglected. Both work with generic elements, both share a love for handcraft and both share meticulous precision in the smallest of details. However, some works appear to have been created nonchalantly and glued together with a mere splash of saliva, while others reveal themselves as the product of countless hours of intensive handwork.

At first glance, the entire exhibition appears as a collection of mundane ready-made objects, raw materials devoid of glamor and beauty, things collected randomly on the suburbs’ outskirts, echoing the grey and depressing aesthetics of Arte Povera. A second look will reveal that Shamir is treating the ready-made with a compassionate hand – the fan and the cast hands are washed in gold, glowing in their prosaic misery; the crumpled parchment papers, some bearing mold traces from a studio flood, look as if they were rescued from disposal. They carry delicate and meticulous drawings of body parts, animals, mundane texts, and unimportant objects copied over years with endless patience from online shopping sites. Here and there, golden flecks shimmer on them too. In contrast, in Fenichel’s works, everything that appears as ready-made is the product of painstaking handcraft. Everything that looks mundane and generic is deceptive, misleading to the eye. The sand mound was made by gluing filtered construction sand bit by bit, and is actually a shell over a hollow construction; the concrete-like brick wall is also hollow and fragile, thin as lace; The snails that cling to the iron pole like parasites are made of thousands of hand-painted porcelain casts. Everything is processed with virtuosity, glowing in its uniqueness.

Thematically, earth, water, wind, and fire could be organizing axes (also) of this exhibition. Each of these four elements is represented in the exhibition with focused, minimalist concentration. The secret of reduction and the large intervals between the works are meant to activate the viewer’s inner attention that transcends time. As in Japanese haiku poems, which use simple and few words to deal with the changing and transient present moment, here too, the wonder is in the air between the words, between the works.

 

On the margins of things – while outside destructive winds have been raging for over a year, disaster following disaster from revenge to revenge, and the hostages still in the tunnels – everyday objects are treated as a reminder of the purposeless act of art-making, as a poetic metaphor for fragments of life, for things that remained.  When they are mended and carefully rehabilitated with a compassionate hand, they might allow a glimmer of hope. Perhaps, in such a turbulent and unbearably difficult time, these are not at all the margins of things, but rather their very core.

 

“Electric fan

Its wings are large

Now resting”
(Yamaguchi)

 

 

Michal Shamir (1957), one of Israel’s most prominent artists, represented by Chelouche Gallery for three decades, graduated from HaMidrash and holds an MFA from the School of Visual Art, New York (1987). Shamir currently heads the School of Art, Society, and Culture at Sapir Academic College. Shamir has exhibited in Israel and abroad, among others at the Ramat Gan Museum, the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, the Haifa Museum of Art, the Ein Harod Museum, and the Bass Museum, Miami Beach. Shamir won numerous awards for her work, among them the Young Artist Award (1984), the Creative Encouragement Award (1999), and the Culture and Education Award for an Israeli Artist (2004).

 

Haimi Fenichel (1972), a prominent sculptor and installation artist, graduated with his BFA from the Department of Ceramic and Glass Design, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem (2002) and MFA at the University of Haifa (2021). Fenichel exhibited in Israel and abroad, among others at the Haifa Museum of Art, the Petah Tikva Museum of Art, the Israel Museum, the Tel Aviv Museum, HaMidrasha Gallery, Tel Aviv, ICA Tel Aviv, The London Jewish Museum, Goethe Institute, Bulgaria, Sunny Art Museum, London, Orangery Museum, Paris, American House, Madrid. Fenichel has won numerous awards, including the Young Artist Award (2007), the Creative Encouragement Award (2014), and the Israeli Ministry of Education and Culture’s Young Artist Award (2017).

On the Margins: Michal Shamir & Haimi Fenichel

Chelouche Gallery for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv-Yafo

November 8 - December 14, 2024

A duo-solo exhibition of Michal Shamir and Haimi Fenichel – a conceptual collaboration on the threshold of a shared installation in which the works intermingle and flow into each other’s space.  

 

The works featured are partly new, some are new versions of previous works and some have been shown in past exhibitions. Their selection was made in alignment with the connection points between the two artists and their fittingness to the space.  

The magic lies in the welding, in the fusion between two artists from different generations who try to capture the same elusive entity, but do so in opposite ways. Both strive to capture the intangibility of life, the beauty of the familiar and the neglected. Both work with generic elements, both share a love for handcraft and both share meticulous precision in the smallest of details. However, some works appear to have been created nonchalantly and glued together with a mere splash of saliva, while others reveal themselves as the product of countless hours of intensive handwork.

 

On the margins of things – while outside destructive winds have been raging for over a year, disaster following disaster from revenge to revenge, and the hostages still in the tunnels – everyday objects are treated as a reminder of the purposeless act of art-making, as a poetic metaphor for fragments of life, for things that remained.  When they are mended and carefully rehabilitated with a compassionate hand, they might allow a glimmer of hope. Perhaps, in such a turbulent and unbearably difficult time, these are not at all the margins of things, but rather their very core.

Haimi Fenichel, Heap, 2024, site-specific version of Mound (2018), construction, manipulated sand