— contemporary Israeli art on display in GZ

    Wang Haiying

    why.art@163.com

    DISPLAYING a panorama of Israeli art, the exhibition “Without Frames: Israeli Contemporary Art” is now on show at the Guangdong Museum of Art until Sept. 1. Presented are works from two established Israeli artists, which are the acrylic paintings on paper by Alima Ritta (1932-2013) and the mixed-media collages and installations by Ruthi Helbitz-Cohen (born in 1969).

    Essence of nature: abstract paintings by Ritta

    Ritta is one of the most valued Israeli artists, and one of the pioneers of printing in Israel. From the mid-1950s, she tried to represent the overall fascination of nature with abstract visual-expressions, such as by using brilliant and colorful squares, or other geometric forms to suggest the vitality and passion of people. Conveying pure, simple and also intense emotions, her paintings go beyond common abstract forms.

    From 2005, Ritta used less and less colors, and began a series of “Black Paintings,” which innovatively combines the various visual lexicon of her earlier periods. Employing the powerful “black” masses and concise but expressive forms and signs, her black paintings reveal the essence of nature. They arouse memories of beautiful landscapes, while also opening a space in the mind for the viewer’s imagination to fill.

    The works in this exhibition, created after 2005, use only numbers as titles, suggesting she did not mean to depict any specific reality.

    For example, showing only some black strokes with some straight and thin lines, one of her works titled “Alima 57” looks like neither trees nor grasses. However, the darkness and thickness of the black strokes give us the impression of the abundance and profundity of nature, which derives from Ritta’s personal feelings and rich life experiences.

    No longer damsels:

    installations and collages by

    Helbitz-Cohen

    Helbitz-Cohen has created a kind of “alchemical” mixed-media by using sheets of tracing paper as a basic material. Dyed with fabric softener, coffee leftovers and other peculiar and non-traditional substances, the “transparent” tracing paper is cut, pasted and painted to produce various objects, such as dragonflies and flowers. Different objects are combined together to form a mixed-media collage or installation. They acquire a transparent effect similar to X-ray images. The metaphoric dragonflies, snakes, flowers or fishes are surrealistically and imaginatively placed inside various “transparent” female figures.

    In terms of this kind of contemporary art language, which is somehow surrealistic, Helbitz-Cohen realistically demonstrates the psychological experiences and true feelings of each female, such as the loss and frustration of the naive damsels, or the anxiety of young mothers.

    Many of the damsels wear crowns on their heads, raising a question to society: Can people treat each of the little girls as if they are princess?

    In one of the collages in the exhibition, a snake and a mushroom are going up into the transparent dress of the infantile girl. She looks upset and helpless with wide-open eyes, but she can do nothing to the sly and wicked snake that will take her virginity.

    Part of the exhibition is composed of objects hung from the ceiling, such as dragonflies in the air and fetuses near the ground which are connected by a long tape symbolizing the umbilical cord.

    Helbitz-Cohen’s “paintings without frames” call for harmony with their surrounding spaces. Although made of paper, Helbitz-Cohen’s collages are transparent and penetrable, and her installations are three-dimensional in space.

    Both of the artists on display go beyond ordinary two-dimensional and non-spatial works, exploring new qualities for the languages of contemporary art.