Zaidel Lena
Street Wolves
Curator: Suisa Albert
Opening: Saturday, 31 August 2013
Closing: Saturday, 12 October 2013
Gallery talk: Saturday, 28 September 2013 12:00
Holiness and the wolf – the beast as a conduit, a signifier of the absence of the signification of holiness and its hidden face in the human space – form the subject of Lena Zaidel’s symbol-laden and multi-layered painting.
In Lena Zaidel’s language of painting, whose use of line transforms the objects it depicts into a space unto itself, the wolves first appear in a seemingly infinite void unbound by definitions of space and time, and then gradually raid city sites indiscriminately, like the plague: at the Temple Mount or in commercial and industrial zones; in nameless crossroads or public institutions; in back yards or city-center squares. The desolate urban space, which is almost completely deprived of human presence, undergoes a Symbolist “purging” that leads one to think: What is the meaning of the world of objects in which no human may be reflected from the animal’s eye?
The impression that this is an apocalyptic vision that the wolves disseminate, is nothing but another, possible horizon of this painting. But for now humans returned to inhabit the space, as though nothing has happened, and the vision is supposedly suspended for another time. Life goes on as it always has, but it is no longer the same; it is fractured and possibly will never be healed. The friendly wolves roaming freely between fragments of reality appear to testify that they have always been here, but our eyes could not see them.
“The animal is in the world like water in water,” says George Battaile in an attempt to distil the ancient appearance of holiness that had been lost to humans, who have been “expelled” and separated from the world. In a fascinating deconstructive move, Lena Zaidel examines the major difference between the secular perception of transcendence-holiness, and the religious perception of holiness as secluded and hierarchical. According to Zaidel, there are no signs of holiness; there are only signifiers of its absurd and lost “possibility,” beyond any existence.
And so, by following the continuous presence of wolves in Zaidel’s paintings, in what seems like a phenomenological pictorial storyboard, we witness a process of Symbolist distillment and the transformation of the wolf into a signifier of the absence of holiness on the one hand, and a conduit of its yearned-for possibility, on the other hand.
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View the full artist's profile ofZaidel Lena
1962 Born in Leningrad
1976 Immigrated to Israel
Lives and works in Jerusalem
Artistic Education
1988 Continuing education, The Department of Fine Arts, Bezalel – Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
1987 Graduate of the Department of Graphic Design, Bezalel – Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
Solo Exhibitions
2007 "All the Places Are Holy – II", Agripas 12- Cooperative Gallery, Jerusalem
2006 "All the Places Are Holy", Cliff (Al Ha Tzuk) Gallery, Netanya)
2003 "Wolves", The Jerusalem Artists' House
2000 "Demeter", Antea Gallery, Jerusalem
1999 "Painted Friends", Musrara School of Photography, Jerusalem
Duo Exhibitions (with Oded Zaidel)
2012 "Jerusalem Panoramas", Migdal David Gallery, Tel-Aviv
"The Monastery", "The Surface", Agripas 12- Cooperative Gallery
2009 Nina Gallery, Gilo, Jerusalem
Selected Group Exhibitions
2012 "Footsteps in the Desert", Kibbutz Be'eri Gallery, (with artists of Agripas 12- Cooperative Gallery and artists from Phoenix, Arizona), Kibbutz Be'eri
Fresh Paint 5 Contemporary Art Fair, Agripas12- Cooperative Gallery, Tel Aviv
"Mother Tongue - National Language", Beit Yad-LeBanim Gallery, Rishon LeZion
"The Dark Side", Agripas 12-Cooperative Gallery, Jerusalem
2011 "The lie of the land", The Diaghilev Hotel, Tel Aviv
Fresh Paint 4 Contemporary Art Fair, Agripas 12- Cooperative Gallery, Tel Aviv
2010 Traces IV, The National Biennale of Drawing, The Jerusalem Artists' House, Jerusalem
"Four Walls", Agripas 12-Cooperative Gallery, Jerusalem
2010 Fresh Paint 3 Contemporary Art Fair, Agripas 12-Cooperative Gallery, Jaffa Port, Tel Aviv
"Wolf, Wolf!", Beit Kener, Rishon LeZion
2009 "Heshbon Nefesh", High Touch Gallery, Herzliya
2008 "Jerusalem - Surface Fractures", The Jerusalem Artists ' House
"Edges", Manofim Project, The New Gallery, Teddy Stadium, Jerusalem
"Broken Phone", Manofim Project, The Artists Workshops, Jerusalem
"Antea Darom", Kaye College of Education, Be´er Sheva
2007 "The Alchemists", The New Gallery, Teddy Stadium, Jerusalem
Traces III, The National Biennale of Drawing, The Jerusalem Artists' House
"The Desert Generation", The Jerusalem Artists´ House, The Kibbutz Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
2006 "Ebb and Flow", Agripas 12- Cooperative Gallery, Jerusalem
2005 Traces II , The National Biennale of Drawing, The Jerusalem Artists' House
2004 "Place for Contemporary Art", High Touch Gallery, Herzyliya
IV International Biennale of Drawing, Pilsen, Czech Republic
2002 "New Members 2002", The Jerusalem Artists' House
1995 "Poetic Images", The Jerusalem Artists' House
1982 "From Symbol to Technology", Leviathan Group, The Jerusalem Theatre
Special Projects
2012 Animation film for M. Gendelev's poem
2011-2012 Publication of M.Gendelev's and M.Grobman's poems in a Literary Review "Ktovet 4"and "Ktovet 5"
2010-2012 Production and montage of documentary films
Translation of Michael Gendelev's Poetry (from Russian to Hebrew)
2010-2011 Translation of Michail Grobman's Poetry (from Russian to Hebrew)
2008-2013 Chief of Exhibition Board, The Jerusalem Artists' House
Curation
2012 "For Whom the Music is Playing" -Natasha Kuznetzova, HaBait HaAdom Gallery, Tel Aviv
2010 "Four Walls", Agripas 12-Cooperative Gallery, Jerusalem
"A Different Reality"-Natasha Kuznetsov, The Artist's House, Jerusalem
"Bon Voyage"-Michael Yakhilevich, The Artist's House, Jerusalem
2008 "Romema-Talpiot"-Oded Zaidel, Agripas 12-Cooperative Gallery, Jerusalem
2007 "New Members 2007", with Oded Zaidel, The Artist's House, Jerusalem
2005 "Ziurnoff" (Landscape Painting)-Oded Zaidel, Agripas 12-Cooperative Gallery, Jerusalem
Work
1989 – 2001 Foundation and managing of a studio for visual communication
Teaching
1999 Musrara School of Photography, Jerusalem
1997- Private lessons in drawing
1994 Bezalel - Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
1993-1995 Ort College, Jerusalem
1993-1994 Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem
1991-2007 Emunah College, Jerusalem
1989-1990 Meimad School, Tel Aviv
Awards
1987 Bezalel - Academy of Arts and Design Prize for designing the banner for Israel´s 39th Anniversary
1983 Young Artists Scholarship, America-Israel Cultural Foundation (Sharet Foundation)
Collections
The Acquisition Board of Israel Museum, Drawing and Prints Department, Jerusalem
Umm el-Fahem Art Gallery, Umm el-Fahem
Mikhail Gendelev, Moscow
Vered and Amir Bitan, Jerusalem
Mikhal and Tristan Troudart, Jerusalem
Dafna and Zeev Goldberg, Ramat-Aviv
Yosef David, Jerusalem
Lena and Alon Goldman, Jerusalem
Elena Gendelev-Kurilov, Jerusalem
Zeev Bar-Sela, Jerusalem
Farideh and Said Golbahar, Jerusalem
Ira and Michael Grobman, Tel Aviv
Yoram Halevy, Haifa
Nurit and Ofer Levy, Mesilat Zion
Yael and Zohar Moskovitch, Mevaseret Zion
Neta Peleg, Haifa
Mikhal and Tistan Troudart, Jerusalem
Rutty and Yuval Weitzman, Mesilat Zion
Elena Tolstoy and Michael Weisskopf, Jerusalem
Naama and Efraim Zaidel, Jerusalem
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Gallery talk with Lena Zaidel
Gallery talk with the artist Lena Zaidel and the curator Albert Suisa about the exhibition “Street Wolves”
Saturday, 28.9.2013 at 12:00 pm
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This exhibition is accompanied by aCatalogue