The Invention of Painting | Group exhibition at Noga Gallery of Contemporary Art | December 2021

The exhibition title is taken from a common theme in 18 th century painting – that of the Corinthian
maiden Butades tracing her lover’s shadow on the wall, as he prepares to go to war. These paintings
follow a 2 nd century story by Pliny the Elder’s about the invention of painting by a young woman, the
daughter of a potter, whose predicament and ingenuity have made her the inventor of painting.

The exhibition The Invention of Painting wishes to show how painters invent, each in his or her own
way, the art of painting and do not accept painting as a “natural” and conventional universal method,
one that they simply have to learn and master, in a more or less distinct way than others.

Like any myth, Pliny the Elder’s myth of the origin of painting does not claim to be, nor can it be,
historically accurate. We know that cave paintings significantly predate ancient Greece. Butades’s
invention offers something else: It provides an urgent answer to a unique situation, one that centers on
love, parting, and looming death. We can assume that under different circumstances, a different
manner of painting would have been invented.

Unlike the manner of painting invented by Butades, which was ingenious but technically simple, the
painters featured in this exhibition are characterized by an invention of painting that does not reveal the
technique or traces of its making. The absence of any trace of the painting instrument is not new.
Already in 17 th Flemish art, some painters worked in a way that made it impossible to understand how
their paintings were made just by looking at them. This painting style evolved from the desire to achieve
radical naturalism. The world is not comprised of brushstrokes, and neither should its depiction. With
the invention of photography, efforts of this kind shifted from naturalism to photorealism: Painting that
emulates the photographic image. Conversely, most schools and styles of Modern painting championed
a focus on the traces left by the painting instruments and wished to expose the painting’s underlying
mechanisms. Since then, it seems that anyone can paint. Even my kid.

The exhibition The Invention of Painting features paintings that foil attempts to decipher how they
were made. Their making remains a mystery to the viewer, who while looking at them, struggles or fails
completely to “recreate” how they were made in his or her mind. The paintings are imbued with the
magic of enigma and mystery that seem to have been lost. Painting is essentially a traditional craft, but
nevertheless, one that can be invented again and again. The need for the invention of painting at this
time is more urgent than ever.

Group  exhibition by the gallery artists- Drawings
Artists participating: Lea Avital, Nogha Engler, Michael Halak, Shahar Yahalom, Orly Maiberg, Hilla Toony Navok, Alexandra Zuckerman, Talia Keinan, Jossef Krispel and Keren Cytter.

Group Exhibition: Gilad Efrat | Ori Gersht | Dror Daum | Marilou Levin |  Tal Mazliach | Jossef Krispel | Elinor Carucci | Amikam Toren | Talia Keinan | Alexandra Zuckerman

The exhibition “Journey in the Fog” comprises images in which reality and hallucination mix with one another. Each piece hold a part of the journey’s complexity. The images are restrained and reserved, possessing a quiet inner force, some are shrouded in fog that traps them. Wishing to find meaning and a foothold in enigmatic landscapes that hold a hidden drama, whose presence is nevertheless palpable in every image. The journey itself is a symbolic one into the unknown and the unfamiliar, in which the epic and intimate, harshness and tenderness are intertwined.

Noga Gallery marks 25 years of fascinating and challenging activity with the 22 gallery’s artists.

The core of Noga Gallery’s activity and essence has always been presenting Israeli artists, with a focus on emerging women artists, and promoting them in Israel and abroad, as well as exposing the local audience to international artists. The mission of presenting groundbreaking artists whose art combines a range of techniques and controversial themes has been a guiding light for us throughout the years. From the early days of the gallery there was an emphasis on creating an emotional and intellectual aesthetic experience, one that stimulates and undermines issues and sharpens our perception of the world. The gallery maintains a diverse and substantial exhibition program and supports emerging artists as well as artists in the more advanced stages of their career.

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Noga Contemporary Art Gallery opened in 1994 on 34 Dizengoff Street, Tel Aviv, after a two-and-a-half-year activity from a private house in Herzliya. It was founded by Nechami Gottlib, and with the move to Tel Aviv, Adina Alshech joined the gallery’s management. In 2002 it moved to its current location on 60 Ahad Ha’am street.

The inaugural show in 1994 was accompanied by a special exhibition of 12 billboards on the façade of Habima Theatre and a catalogue. The exhibition was divided into two installments and featured works by the artists Smadar Eliasaf, Tamara Messel, Irit Hemo, Rivka Potchebutzky, Belu Simion Fainaru, Orly Maiberg, Hadar Maor Dgani, Nurit Avidov, Morel Derfler, Michal Heiman, Tito Leguisamo, and Max Friedman.

In its early years, the gallery presented solo shows by Irit Hemo, Tal Mazliach, Galit Eilat and Max Friedman, Smadar Eliasaf, Joshua Neustein, David Ginaton, Marilu Levin, Michal Heiman, Hila Lulu Lin, Nir Hod, Yehudit Sasportas, Miriam Cabessa, Larry Abramson, Orly Maiberg, Mosh Kashi and others. For many of these artists this was their first solo show.

The gallery was ahead of its time and held exhibitions that pushed the envelope, such as Max Friedman and Galit Eilat’s installation that simulated a bordello in the gallery, the work of Hila Lulu Lin who presented a giant nude photograph, Nicole Eisenman’s installation that included a large mural, the works of Talia Keinan that combine drawing and video, Keren Cytter’s provocative films, as well as the display of photography and video works, which was rather rare in the early 1990s and the display of distinctly noncommercial bodies of work. We were the first to exhibit the students of Israel Hershberg’s Jerusalem Studio School in Israel, among them Aram Gershuni, David Nipo, Eldad Farber, and more. This pluralism, which nowadays sounds natural, did not exist in the artistic climate of those years.

The gallery organized and produced a large benefit event whose proceeds were dedicated to Meira Shemesh z”l who needed a heart transplant, but by the time a heart was found it was too late.

The international artist Ori Gersht had his first solo exhibition at Noga Gallery, from which his career catapulted to worldwide recognition.

In 2000 the gallery was invited by the British Council to curate a show of young British artists. The exhibition, curated by Nechami Gottlib, was on view concurrently at Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art while Noga Gallery featured works by Sam Taylor-Wood, Sarah Lucas, Sarah Jones, Gillian Wearing, and Mat Collishaw – some of the leading artists of the YBA group.

With the move to the space on Ahad Ha’am Street we opened a special projects room, which allowed artists who are not in the gallery’s roster to present unique projects and installations for over a decade.  Another expansion was made possible by using the gallery’s display window facing the street for performances and various installations.

The gallery’s artists have had solo exhibitions and participated in group shows in leading Israeli and international museums and art events, such as the Venice Biennale, Tate Modern and Tate Britain in London, the Guggenheim and the Whitney Museum in New York, Pompidou Center in Paris, Hamburger Banhof in Berlin and more. Their works are included in leading museum, public, and private collections in Israel and around the world. Many have won awards from museums as well as the ministry of culture and sports.

The international artists who exhibited at the gallery include Nicole Eisenman, a San Francisco based artists group, a group of Cuban artists, Felipe Cezar, Gillian Wearing, Sarah Lucas, Kara Walker, Shahzia Sikander, Kader Attia. The artists Nicole Eisenman and Kader Attia, who were invited to show at the gallery in the early stages of their careers, have since gone on to gain wide acclaim, win prestigious awards, and show their works at the world’s leading museums.

The gallery participated and continues to participate in the world’s leading art fairs such as Art Basel, Art Basel Miami, FIAC Paris, Art Forum Berlin, the Armory Show in New York and more.

And on a personal note, art makes us happy, it makes us think, and challenges us.

We came to art with love and with love we will go on.

Bathing Season

Participating Artists:

Lea Avital

Eti Jacobi

Orit Raff

Shirley Shor

Shahar Yahalom

Natalia Zourabova

Alexandra Zuckerman

At the end of the bathing season “there is a suffocating smell from afar”. Does Tamuz (marking the beginning of the bathing season) hold a different promise? It seems that the works in the exhibition display a bit of both. An aura of pastorality and situations full of delight, pleasure and much beauty lingers over the pieces. Some works are accompanied by a breath of fresh air, of freedom and rejuvenation, yet at times also contain troublesome and threatening situations, hinting at danger.

Misunderstood

Curated by: Reply All – Yasmine Datnow and Maïa Morgensztern

Artists: Rina Banerjee, Talia Keinan, Wolfe von Lenkiewicz and Hennessy Youngman

The continuous growth of the technology of information and communication has changed people’s knowledge and understanding of each other; what were once commonly held stereotypes have been fractured by globalised experiences. A proliferation of information creates a reordering of beliefs and

this shift lead to misrepresentation and misunderstandings.

Misrepresentations of normality lead to the Uncanny and the displaced references that occur also blur any sense of self. This brings the potential for a new world order. As a shift takes place, identity issues arise. Communication between individuals becomes skewed, which emerge as duplicitous and enable artists to play with their audience through whimsical interactions. All these events encourage self proclaimed taste-makers to constantly challenge notions of taste.

As a result people learned behaviors are contest by illusory correlation, (the perception of a relationship between two variables when only a minor or absolutely no relationship actually exists). The various ways in which misinterpretation is visually manifested and where a sense of order can be rebuilt beyond this issue are explored through the work of Rina Banerjee, Talia Keinan, Wolfe von Lenkiewicz and Hennessy Youngman calling into question Taste and its connotations. The audience’s dialogue with the work evokes a reassignment of value by an ever-changing, self-elected class able to diffuse and shuffle information at speed.

Brooklyn based artist Rina Banerjee (Born 1963, Kolkota) moved with her family to the UK and then to America. In 1995 she completed an MFA at the Yale University School of Art after abandoning her career as a polymer chemist. She has a love of materials and enjoys theatrically re-staging their inherent meanings in sculptures and drawings, paintings and videos.

Like an alchemist Banerjee draws on her experiences growing up in different places, bringing items that act as cultural signifiers together in curious and enchanting compositions. The works have a magical feel and tell stories; their titles give a mythical introduction to the artist’s thought process. Her watercolor works explore a dream-like world where strange beastly but oddly endearing creatures are suspended in time, surrounded by hybrid flora and fauna. Sometimes a more sinister undercurrent pervades, giving us

a feeling that beneath the glimmer and shine, darker secrets lurk.

The work of Talia Keinan (Born 1978, Israel) is in constant flux. Her use of a variety of media refers to the existing realm that lies between reality and fantasy. The space she creates can be viewed as a world of its own, where sound unveils an obscure memory, and projected video on a drawing generates imaginative places. By navigating the space, the viewer initiates a dialogue between objects to create a private and associative experience. The materials are transformed as a personal narrative unfolds, creating an invented and autonomous world. Within her drawings and collages this alternative world remains for us to explore.

Wolfe von Lenkiewicz’s (Born 1966, Britain) chief artistic concern is the appropriation of language and mythology. He boldly experiments with hybrid visual combinations that straddle the murky borders of the shocking and offensive. His art historical intervention demonstrates our complacency towards imagery, namely those iconic works through art history. Our knowledge of them has become so much second nature that we take them for granted. It is not until they are disturbed that we realize how much confidence we place in them. The history of art can be understood as comprising of changes from one mode of visual representation to another. The difference is the highly contemporary and extreme nature of Lenkiewicz’s subject matter. The works demonstrates that no image is sacred and thus the artist is free to disseminate subject matter as he sees fit.

Hennessy Youngman (Born 1985, the Bronx) is a self taught art historian, who tutored himself about art and the inner-workings of the art world whilst working as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Youngman appears in direct-address to the Internet at large in online episodes of a series titled “Art Thoughtz” which began in early 2010. Most often, Youngman takes on the role of art or cultural critic while speaking about topics concerning art, race, gender, and popular culture. In his video monologues, Youngman becomes a tutor to an audience of hopeful artists in search of success. By explaining traditional art concepts and relating them to pop culture and real world examples, he is able to expose issues and conflicts within contemporary art society. A scheme is perpetuated, through Youngman and the “Art Thoughtz” videos, of following an often sympathetic character, one who is apparently outside the art world, attempting to understand and permeate a seemingly exclusive cultural society.

Curators:

At the beginning of 2012 Yasmine Datnow and Maïa Morgensztern started the company Reply All, having collaborated on projects for the previous 2 years.

Reply All is an agency specializing in curating, teaching, broadcasting and consulting for contemporary art, design and culture. Previous projects include the critically acclaimed group exhibition JaffaCakes TLV, a show in London featuring 7 artists from Tel Aviv. Ongoing projects include the radio show ‘Culture FRL’ for the radio station FRL (French Radio London).

Prior to their collaboration, Yasmine Datnow received a BA in the History of Art and Architecture at the University of East Anglia and an MA in Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute. She became Modern Collections Coordinator at White Cube (2000-2004) and was an Independent Art Consultant and Curator (2004-2012).

Maïa Morgensztern received a BA, MA and M.Phil in Art History from La Sorbonne, Paris IV. She later became Art and Auction Manager at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Foundation, New York (2005-2008), Manager of the Ikepod by Marc Newson pop-up store at Phillips de Pury, London (2009) and Cultural Editor for French Radio London (2010-current)

Habitat

Participating Artists:

Nino Biniashvili

Talia Keinan

Gosia Machon

Amit Mann

Dragan Prgomelja

“Habitat” – the natural environment in which an organism lives, a geo-physical environment in which each present living organism has its survival needs fulfilled. A habitat is then a designated area: a home, other interior spaces, public territories, gardens, city squares as well as dream rooms. It is a space in which one can grow and potentially develop. Five artists from Germany and Israel aim at exploring their own personal habitats: The project aims to create a visual narrative, developed by the examination of each of the artists’ personal habitat. Their works inspect the personal habitat from its territorial context, how it is observed from afar, and their subjective sensations in it and around it. This exhibition and a book, published by Bookieman, are the outcome of this process. About Bookieman. Bookieman is an independent publishing house, funded by Nino Biniashvili and Omri Grinberg. Bookiemans’ focus is limited editions of artist books, with an emphasis on collaborations between writers, poets, illustrators, photographers and designers. Its focuses are on poetic, critical and thorough content.

Group Exhibition in the Project Room
This project is supported by the Ministry of Culture, City of Hamburg

“Habitat” – the natural environment in which an organism lives, a geo-physical environment in which each present living organism has its survival needs fulfilled. A habitat is then a designated area: a home, other interior spaces, public territories, gardens, city squares as well as dream rooms. It is a space in which one can grow and potentially develop.

Five artists from Germany and Israel aim at exploring their own personal habitats: The project aims to create a visual narrative, developed by the examination of each of the artists’ personal habitat. Their works inspect the personal habitat from its territorial context, how it is observed from afar, and their subjective sensations in it and around it. This exhibition and a book, published by Bookieman, are the outcome of this process.

About Bookieman:

Bookieman is an independent publishing house, funded by Nino Biniashvili and Omri Grinberg. Bookiemans’ focus is limited editions of artist books, with an emphasis on collaborations between writers, poets, illustrators, photographers and designers. Its focuses are on poetic, critical and thorough content.

SOLAR ECLIPSE Group Exhibition

Oren Ben Moreh, Maya Bloch, Marik Lechner, Noga Shatz

The expression Solar Eclipse is comprised of 2 words: Solar – Sun, Eclipse – Disruption. A Solar Eclipse occurs when the Earth, the Moon and the Sun are situated on the same axis; the moon blocks the view of the Sun or part of it. A total Eclipse results in a complete obstruction of sunlight or what is known as Black Sun. Through out history the eclipse was considered to have a supernatural influence as a result of the fear it aroused.

The expression Black Sun is also a metaphorical and refers to one of the most common phenomenon’s of modern life: depression and melancholy. Most of the works in the exhibition possess the occurrence of disruption, a creative distortion of the chaotic world, reckless and mysterious. The exhibition as a whole is immersed in a black darkness, as if covering the works with a thick blanket. The works are compressed with layers upon layers that are created through expressive energy.

The Black, through its density and material quality, takes over everything, the unusual images flicker through, images connected to mythology and architypes, revealing psychological states and consciousness that shifts between reality and illusion, a place and no place. Oren Ben Moreh – Born in Israel 1982, Graduate of the Midrasha, 2004. Maya Bloch – Born in Israel 1978, MA Graduate, History of Art from the Tel Aviv University, 2004. Noga Shatz – Born in Israel 1978, Garduate of the Midrasha, 2007