Thu 28 March 2019 | 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Alfred Gallery - Aharon Chelouche 5, Tel Aviv,

 

Alfred Gallery is proud to announce the opening of the second exhibition for the 2019 under the annual theme ‘Burn Your Bridges Down’.

How to Catch a Witch

A Group Exhibition of the Artists: Inbal Mendes Flohr, Inbal Limor Pfeffer, Cornelia Renz and Elena Ceretti Stein

Opening Event: Thursday, March 28, 2019 at 20:00
Closing: April 26, 2019 at 14:00

During the exhibition a number of events will take place:

* Saturday, April 13 at 11:00 am:
A talismans workshop led by Inbal Limor Pfeffer, Inbal Mendes Flohr and Elena Ceretti Stein

* Friday, April 26 at 12:00:
Lecture and Gallery talk:
“The Life and Death of a Shaman 12,000 Years Ago”
Prof. Leore Grosman of the Institute of Archeology at the Hebrew University will lecture on the witch’s archaeological findings from Hilazon

* More events will be published later.

The exhibition is constructed as an exploration of the origin of the archetypal image of the witch. The journey passes through a series of installations that divide the gallery into four areas: the grave on the mountain; the forest; the hybrid between man and beast; the cave. The works and the manner in which they are installed are reminiscent of ritual activity.
The exhibition was inspired by “the witch from Hilazon,” whose grave was found in archaeological excavations on behalf of the Hebrew University in the cave of Hilazon in the Western Galilee. The grave contained a 12,000-year-old skeleton of a crippled woman who probably practiced shamanism. Alongside the skeleton, there were also unusual offerings: 50 tortoiseshells, the hipbones of a tiger and a human leg.
The ancient shamanic tomb, and the only one of its kind in the Middle East, invites us to become acquainted with the forgotten local matriarchal history. As for today, in certain feminist circles, the image of the witch has transformed from being an offensive symbol to a symbol representing women’s power. This transformation is part of the struggle for equality between the sexes and breaking of patriarchal social concepts.
In a personal interpretation of the longing for a lost reality, a bridge that was burned, and the desire to bridge between the past and our familiar reality, the participating artists face collective memories that they must map, burn and sacrifice to create a new reality.
The journey begins with an installation made of patches and attachments between cloths, threads, various crafts and pieces of wood by Inbal Limor Pfeffer, which appears from the depths of the imaginary mountain “Ein Ha’Kvura” (Eye of the Tomb). Through a ceremonial and spiritual entrance, visitors enter the thick forest of Elena Ceretti Stein, a forest of white bone-shaped rock sculptures with a fountain hidden amidst them. In the third area of the voyage, Cornelia Renz exhibits intertwined hybrids between humans and animals, on Zionist landscapes, painted with pigmented markers on canvas. The end of the journey in the fourth area – The Black Cave – Inbal Mendes Flohr exhibits large-scale phosphorescent paintings.

Burn the Bridges Down:

The exhibition How to Catch a Witch is the second in the annual theme of 2019, which is dedicated to exhibitions relating to the concept Burn Your Bridges Down.
The word Bridge describes an architectural functional structure that connects two places, and is commonly used as a metaphor. The command Burn your bridges is used as a strategic plan in situations of siege or persecution.
Bridges symbolize physical and mental territories, changes and transitions between periods and interpersonal relationships. We are accustomed to thinking that the path to growth and progress must be based on creating continuity and bridging gaps. Sometimes, however, the only way to move on, to reinvent ourselves, to rise up like a phoenix from the painful memories, is to sever the relationship irreversibly. To burn the bridges so that we can no longer go back, in order to prevent demons from the past from continuing to persecute us.
In the 2019 exhibition we will examine the concept of burn your bridges down from a variety of aspects: personal, intimate, political, historical, gender and social.

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