Play/Ground

Group exhibition
The Cuckoo's Nest Gallery, Tel Aviv
2018
(curator)
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The exhibition dealt with self, gender, political, and community definitions through various prisms related to the signifier: "play". The exhibition, held in honor of Pride Month, invited viewers to ask questions about power relations in cultural structures while creating an environment that is at the same time disturbing and yet full of humor.

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Press Release:

The Play/Ground exhibition deals with self, gender, political and community definitions through various prisms related to the signifier: "play". The exhibition, held in honor of Pride Month, invites viewers to ask questions about gender, sexuality, community, childhood and the relations between these cultural structures, while diving into a world that is at the same time disturbing and yet full of humor.

The word "play" is one complex concept. On the one hand, it represents childhood and the notion of innocence, communication taking place alongside pleasure, imagination and even a nostalgic sense of longing. It brings out a craving of environments, those in which we played with toys, other children and imaginative constructs in a debt-free moratorium. On the other hand, "play" could signify a very powerful thing – power-play relations, playing with other’s emotions, sexual role play - these are phrases that use this so-called innocent word and charge it with a connotation of manipulation and malice.

The exhibition is divided into the seven spaces that make up the gallery itself, each of which deals with a different aspect related to gameplay. One room will present works dealing with sexual play, both in a literal sense expressed in a checkerboard game whose pieces are in fact models of phallic members, and in the sense of works that express sexual humor as well. Another room presents an unconventional playground and perpetuates the transformation of the playground from an innocent and safe place to a traumatic and aggressive place, which serves as an arena for actions that are done with doubtingly wilful, often associated with violence and force. In the LGBTQ community specifically, which has a dark sexual history associated with playgrounds in the past, this space evokes a complex connotation. Another room presents works by various artists that use puppets, among the most central symbols of childhood and innocence, and invert their meaning into one that is dark and critical. Other spaces deal with gender play as well as inner-artistic conduct in works that interplay between mediums and techniques.

The featured artworks in the exhibit discuss, among other things, the complexities of gender and sexual identity, queer and heteronormative cultures, identity politics and more. Engaging in these topics through culture and art creates a unique encounter for both performers, artists and the audience.

On the opening night of the exhibition, performance works will be presented in which the audience is invited to take an active part. The process of moving from stage sketches to finished work, in which the viewers get their own say, allows for a work that is much more than art itself – it’s a community. Creators will expose sketches to the audience and raise questions that arise from their works. Performers: Alona Saar, Gil Seri, Ofir Tsuigbum, Adi Shielden and Zoya Bronstein.

Artists: Guy On, Moran Asraf, Sharona Efrat, Dana Bracha, Zohar Brandes, Gila Greenfeld, Hadar Dahan, Daria Davidov, Hagai Hirshfeld, Yossi Madar, Nitzan Mintz, Noam Mazliach, Keren Segal, Limor Tzror, Olaf Kunman, Omri Koresh, Bernard Reichman.