Foto Friday – Deborah Sinai’s Working Women
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Profiles
Milan-born Deborah Sinai is an internationally published photographer who currently works as a freelancer for news agencies in Italy, Israel and the UK. Sinai also puts her passion for documentation into independent projects, profiling subjects of personal interest.
Women in Men’s Jobs, completed last year, is a series of portraits of Israeli women working in non-traditional workplaces. The project, states Sinai, “aims to explore the themes of confidence and determination, passion and ambition, through the photographs of Israeli women participating in activities typically reserved for men.”
These range from sign-maker Sharonit Haziza, who says, “some clients are a bit surprised about it but they appreciate the final faultless work”…
…to motorbike mechanic Tal Perevolotsky who finds her clientele “feel that their motorcycles [are] treated better just because I’m a woman.”
Sinai states, “Perhaps the biggest challenge these women face is the reception by their co-workers and clients. How others treat them is extremely varied, offering insight into Israel’s social conscience. These women sometimes face gossip and negative comments condemning their break with traditional female roles.”
That problem is faced head-on by construction manager Lior Carmi who tells Sinai, “My work crew, obviously, have no problem to work and to take instructions from a woman. Those that do don’t work for me!”
There are those, like electrician-plumber Rachel Halamish Zemach, who “love[s] dressing in a feminine way even when I am getting filthy” and finds that many female customers prefer a handywoman to a handyman, particularly those “that do not feel comfortable or secure with male workers in their home.”
One factor all the women Sinai interviewed have in common is a streak of perfectionism or going the extra mile. “I like to do my best in any given situation,” says carpenter Orit Goren.
The element of self-fulfillment — and love for the job — is another unifying factor, like that of pilot Ravit Naor who began flying at the age of 39 once she “understood that I could not let my dreams wait any longer.” Today, she tells Sinai, “I have the best office in the world, and with a great view!”
More Women in Men’s Jobs can be found on Deborah Sinai’s website, where other works — featured in national and international magazines and newspapers such as the British Journal of Photograohy and RPS magazine, La Stampa, Photovision and Israel’s Masa Aher — can also be viewed and purchased.
Foto Friday – Tel Aviv Contrasts with Gabriel Benaim
Filed under: Art, design, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Picture of the Week, Travel
Tel Aviv is a city of contrasts, not only for the lifestyles that coexist within its boundaries but in its very appearance. Up close it seems trashy, flashy and colorful. But take a step back and what you see are light-hued buildings set against dark shadows cast by the bright unblinking Mediterranean sun.
Black and white photographic imagery — captured the old-fashioned way on film and printed on paper in a darkroom — may be the ideal way to present that contrast.
And printing on silver chloride paper — a rarity nowadays — could not be more perfect for the many shades of grays along that spectrum.
Photographer Gabriel Benaim’s work was first profiled by Israelity last year. Since then, a lot has happened. His first solo show opened last month at the Walter Keller Gallery in Zurich, and his “Tel Aviv at 100″ series has been included in the Center for Fine Art Photography’s portfolio showcase. Plus, German magazine Photonews has published a selection of Tel Aviv shots in their May issue.
In his gallery notes, Walter Keller writes: “I am taken by the alertness, the quiet attention to detail of the images. Strolling, leisurely meandering like a flaneur, Benaim captures this city that was founded 100 years ago.”
“Using a large-format camera, Benaim presents us near perfectly produced silver gelatin contact prints. And this in itself is a breath of fresh air given the current confusion within the production of contemporary photography. Almost like a moment of silence in the midst of a noisy performance, Benaim’s images are calm, unhurried; photographs that pull the brakes on the race that is our urban life.”
Visit Gabriel Benaim’s homepage to view more of his work.
Foto Friday – Fresh Paint
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Pop Culture, Travel
The third Fresh Paint contemporary Israeli art fair opens next week, on May 5–8, 2010, at the newly renovated Warehouse 1 in the Old Jaffa Port. Since its inauguration two years ago, Fresh Paint has become Israel’s largest and most influential art event, bringing together all of the most significant players in the Israeli art world and supported by the country’s leading art institutions. It’s kind of a crazy art madhouse with tens of thousands of visitors from Israel and elsewhere.
As in previous years, Fresh Paint’s organizers asked each participating artist to create a post-card sized artwork for a project entitled The Secret Postcard, modeled after the Royal College of Art’s successful sale in London. Of course, Fresh Paint’s deal with aspects of Israeli reality:
Politics…
Leisure time…
History…
Progress…
And the existential, solid as a floor tile, fleeting as a steaming hot cup of tea.
The postcards are put on display and sold on a first-come, first-served basis at the uniform price of NIS 180. But there’s catch: the works are exhibited anonymously. Only afterwards do the buyers find out whether their purchase was created by a young up-and-comer or an already well-known artist. This year’s selection of 1,400 postcards includes works by over 700 artists, including well known names like Menashe Kadishman, Yair Garbuz, David Tartakover, Johanan Herson and Yehudit Sasportas. All proceeds from the project fund scholarships for youth from underprivileged backgrounds who excel in the arts, enabling them to study at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art’s Education Center program. All the postcards can also be viewed online.
Fresh paint 3 will include a silent auction of a work by the well-known Israeli artist Lea Nikel. All proceedings from the sale will go to finance art workshops for children with cancer hospitalized at the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer.
All works by Fresh Paint 3’s independent artists are available for purchase at the fair, with revenue for these works passed directly to the artists on a commission-free basis.
This is one event definitely worth visiting. For better or for worse, it provides insight into the art scene and, for a fair price, you can support our local artists. Plus, it’s fun! And once you’re done with Fresh Paint, dinner at Doctor Shakshouka will make for a perfect night.
Foto Friday – A Return to Poland with Yael Bartana
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Pop Culture
Artist Yael Bartana investigates Israeli society and politics through photography, film, video, sound work and installations. Born in Afula and now working in Amsterdam and Tel Aviv, she has had numerous solo exhibitions in Israel and abroad, most recently at the Sommer Contemporary Art gallery in Tel Aviv.
Bartana is interested in the events that have shaped Israeli and Jewish history and identity in the 20th century, such as propaganda films, archival footage, military symbols, uniforms and ceremonies and anthems.
The current exhibition is the Israeli premiere of a video installation in which 2 films out of a yet-incomplete trilogy are presented: Nightmares (2007) and Wall & Tower (2009). In Nightmares, a young activist speaks to an empty stadium and encourages 3 million Jews to return to Poland.
Fictional though it may be, the idea of such encouragement (the word “Jew” in the mouths of Poles is presented here as positive, not negative) and the enthusiastic pioneering response (so evocative of youth movements, the early kibbutz and other images that nourished our idealism over the past century) is disturbing. Which it is supposed to be. Particularly given the exhibit’s timing, with Holocaust Remembrance Day coming up on Sunday and Israel Independence Day the week after.
“Wall and Tower” continues the hypothetical notion of a Jewish return to Poland. In this film, the Jews return to build the first kibbutz in Europe using the overnight jerry-built “wall and tower” tactic employed by pre-State Jewish pioneers under the British Mandate. The location of this fantasy settlement is also significant: it was filmed in Warsaw on the site where the Museum of the History of Polish Jews will stand.
According to the Polish Cultural Institute, “The artist fantasizes about a vigorous new movement… the Movement for Jewish Rebirth in Poland. Its distinct logo, a white eagle on a Star of David…
“Bartana recalls the Zionist dream, invoking heroic images… [and] moves within an ambiguous area marked by the specters of nationalism and military determination, touching upon the memory of anti-Semitism and extermination which accompanied the history of settlement.”
All of which, it should be added, led to the eventual founding of the State of Israel as a national Jewish homeland following the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews — including 3 million Jews of Polish extraction — were murdered.
Yael Bartana’s show runs through May 15 at Sommer Contemporary Art, 13 Rothschild Boulevard, Tel Aviv. More works can be viewed at the gallery website and the artist’s website.
Foto Friday – Edward Kaprov helps splice the ends
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, Pop Culture, Religion
Splicing the Ends is the name of a new art exhibition that opens next week, November 28th, at the Amiad Center in Old Jaffa. Over the past two years, Amiad has emerged as a unique center for the arts in Jaffa’s newly revived Flea Market area, now a hot nightlife spot for Tel Aviv’s young bohemian set.
According to the organizers, the exhibit celebrates the winter season festivals for the three major monotheistic religions — Hannuka, Christmas and Eid ul Fitr — by “telling the story of mankind through the different religions… exploring the themes of immigration, living as an individual and as part of a community, and how one relates to oneself and to one’s environment.”
The show features works by over 30 painters, sculptors and photographers , including Edward Kaprov. A veteran immigrant to Israel from the former Soviet Union, Kaprov has worked with Israel’s biggest newspapers including business daily Globes, Haaretz and Yedioth Aharonot. His features have been published by National Geographic, GEO, and Russian Newsweek as well as other publications.
His work on display in “Splicing the Ends” deals with how religion informs day-to-day life in Israel, whether in the army…
…at a soup kitchen for hungry children…
…motivating political protest…
Kaprov’s work ranges from news and commercial photography to personal projects, including a series on Shamanism in Israel.
Splicing the Ends runs from November 28 through December 21 at the Amiad Center. A portion of the proceeds from the exhibit will go to ILAN, Israel’s Foundation for the Handicapped.
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