Traces III

The Third Biennale for Drawing in Israel

Traces III is the third in the series of national drawing biennale exhibitions initiated by the Jerusalem Artists House. Over 200 works by around 150 artists will be shown in this extensive exhibition. The exhibition will be held concurrently in four artist-based exhibition spaces in Jerusalem: The Artists House, Barbur Gallery, Agripas 12 Gallery, and The Jerusalem Print Workshop.

The central opening for the Biennale will take place at The Artists House on Saturday 1.12.2007 at 6:30 pm

The opening at the Artists House will be followed by openings at the other locations:

• 7:30 pm Barbur Gallery 6 Shirizili St. tel. 052-4627345

• 8 pm Agripas 12 Gallery 12 Agripas St. tel. 02-6233257

• 8:30 pm The Jerusalem Print Workshop 29 Shivtei Israel St. tel. 02-6288614

On the opening night all the galleries taking part in Traces III will be open until 11 pm.

Gallery Talk with the curator Dalia Manor at the Artists House will take place on Thu. 13.12.2007 6:30 pm

Other Events:
▪ Barbur: Electro Roc music performance, Mon. 3.12.2007 8:30 pm
▪ Agripas 12: Gallery Talk, Thu. 20.12.2007 7 pm
▪ Jerusalem Print Workshop: Lecture: “Between Literature and Art”
by Dr. Nevet Dolev, Thu. 27.12.2007 7 pm

• The exhibition is accompanied by a full catalogue

List of participants
Artists presenting at The Artists House: Etty Abergel; Larry Abramson; Said Abu Shakra; Simon Adjiashvili; Ronit Agassi; Hagai Argov; Dror Auslander; Gili Avissar; Osnat Avital; Avishay Ayal; Shirly Bahar; Irit Barel Bassan; Tamar Barkai; Tali Ben Bassat; Eitan Ben-Moshe; Ruth Ben-Yaakov; Yifat Bezalel; Nachemia Bezzubov; Dan Birenboim; Yuval Caspi; Mira Cedar; Yaacov Chefetz; Sara Chen; Ofri Cnaani; Revital Cohen; Shibetz Cohen; Yaniv Cohen; Zohar Cohen; Gilad Efrat; Avraham Eilat; Michal Erez; Cocos Inga Fonar; Yehoshua Front; Naomi Gafni; Miriam Gamburd; Hagit Gaon; Michal Gilboa-David; Nechama Golan; Gary Goldstein; Noa Goren; Miri Grossman; Sandra Gruber; Nurit Gur-Lavy (Karni); Ra’anan Harlap; Elen Hasidim-Rom; Irit Hemmo; Jonathan Hirschfeld; Orit Hofshi; Nely Horowic; David Isaacs; Or Kadar; Carmella Kalai; Michal Karmon; Irit Katav; Gilead Keydar; Gabriela Klein; Eli Koplevitch; Sela Koren; Alex Kremer; Olaf Kuhnemann; Boris Lekar; France Lerner; Ami Levi; Edward Lewin; Noga Linchevsky; Anat Lipner Salomon; Peter Jacob Maltz; Yzhak Marecha; Eve Menes; Anat Michaelis-Levi; Arik Miranda; Ishai Mishory; Nirit Mitrany; Roy Mordechay; Lior Neiger; Hana Ninio; Miri Nishri; Alejandra Okret; Nona Orbach; Galia Pasternak; Eli Petel; Tessy Pfeffer-Cohen; Avishay Platek; Sharon Poliakine; Amir Pollak; Liat Polotsky; Yulia Rabesky; Osnat Rabinovitch; Rachel Rabinovitch; Jud Raviv; Pnina Reichman; Dorit Ringart; Hillel Roman; Gina Rotem; Racheli Rottner; Ram Samocha; Yehudit Sasportas; Anne Sassoon; Shirly Schweitzer; Ohad Shaaltiel; Michal Shamir; Gil Marco Shani; Chen Shapira; Khen Shish; Shir Shvadron; Hanna Shvily; Pamela Silver; Ronen Siman-Tov; Alina Speshilov; Ruth Tal; Zvi Tolkovsky; Micha Ullman; Yonatan Vinitsky; Hadas Weiss; Drora Weitzman; Adi Weizmann Aharoni; Beba Yannay; Carien Yatsiv; Shai Yehezkelli; Lena Zaidel; Noa Zait; Leah ZaremboArtists presenting at Barbur GalleryAmnon Ben-Ami; Eitan Buganim; Yahel Daniel; Gilit Fisher; Hadas Hassid; Talia Keinan; Yaakov Mishori; Uri Radovan; Avi Sabah; Yanai Segal; Danny Zak; Masha ZusmanArtists presenting at The Jerusalem Print WorkshopMichal Bachi; Aya Ben Ron; Dov Heller; Jossef Krispel; Rutu Modan; Naftali RakuzinArtists presenting at Agripas 12 GalleryOscar Abosh; Tomer Appelbaum; Einat Arif-Galanti; Vered Aviv; Dvora Ben-Shaul; Meirav Davish-Ben Moshe; Yemima Ergas; Yossi Galanti; Gil Haller; Shimon Lev; Michael Levtov; Doron Livné; Orna Millo; Ami Rosenberg; Sidon Rothenberg; Anat Vaknin Appelbaum; Oded Zaidel
The Medium and the Message: Reflecting on Drawing Materials Today – Dalia Manor

Traces III, the third national Biennale for Drawing in Israel is a joyful testimony to the significant place of drawing in art today. Developments in this field in Israel mirror those in the international art world since the mid 1990s. The Biennale for Drawing, founded in 2001 by the Jerusalem Artists House was one of the first manifestations of this development in Israel and even contributed to its growth.
The emergence of drawing can be interpreted as a response to the large installations and the complex production of monumental works. It may also relate to photography, another fast growing field which is more common in Israeli art. Despite the obvious differences between drawing and photography, they are not necessarily rivals. The appearance of photography in the nineteenth century allowed artists to use photographs instead of drawing, as kinds of preparatory sketches for paintings and sculpture. Nowadays the use of the photographic source is also present; indeed many artists in this exhibition make use of photographs. These are taken from newspapers, magazines and books or drawn from the infinite reservoir of the internet; private family snapshots or photographs the artist has taken specifically in preparation for the act of drawing.
There are interesting consequences to the role of photography in drawing, especially with regards to the perception of reality. When photography is conceived as the substitute of reality, looking at it is considered observing the world. In strict formal terms the impact of the photograph is straightforward: it frames the visible world, flattens the space, emphasizes the objects’ contours and intensifies light and shade. Thus it offers the drawing ready-made grip points. Moreover, the photographic source is very often in color, while the drawing, which is usually in black and white, seemingly returns the photograph to an earlier historic stage. The physical meeting, through collage, of the photograph and the drawing can be added to these convergences of medium, as well as the uses of photocopying or digital scanning, all contribute to the current drawn image. In addition to the traditional techniques, borrowing from the world of the office and classroom, new drawing means have developed. For instance, the ballpoint pen – a cheap and common industrial product, with a limited number of colors and line quality – is one of the most popular drawing tools today. Paradoxically, when the original use of the ballpoint pen is disappearing in the age of the keyboard, artists are preserving this outdated modern technology. The ballpoint pen, in contrast to the fountain pen or quill, was never intended to create a beautiful and refined script; it gives a rough, simple line that evokes directness and immediacy in drawing yet is devoid of sentimental or romantic qualities. The use of a ballpoint pen adds color to drawing although a wider range of colors is offered by markers or felt-tip pens. These give a uniform and dry line suitable for their original purpose of marking and highlighting. When used in drawing they produce a precise and industrial, rather cool, and yet bright and colorful look. The use of tracing paper is also common in contemporary drawing; a material that was widely used for architectural and engineering drawing and has all but disappeared due to the use of computers. Adopted by artists, it now gains a new life even though it isn’t particularly easy to use for drawing: it has a fragile and smooth surface that wrinkles on contact with wet color. Its main characteristic allows the copying of an image that lies beneath it, thus linking it to the history of drawing as an act of replication: from the “copying” of nature to the series of copies leading from the sketch through to the finished painting. An echo of the tradition of copying is also seen in the use made of carbon-copy paper, a historic piece of office equipment that is also on the brink of extinction, or by frottage – rubbing graphite across a rough surface and thus duplicating its texture. Other materials from the office and classroom environment include adhesive tapes, Plasticine, cardboard used in packing and filing, whiteout, graph paper, and postal envelopes. The use of the computer is without doubt the most prominent technological innovation in drawing today. In a way, drawing via computer is the essence of drawing – drawing a limitless line on an immaterial area – drawing with no surface. In fact, this isn’t drawing at all, but rather a series of mathematical data that appear before our eyes as an illusory vision, like an idea of drawing. It is realized in material – after the question of surface and size has been decided – when it is printed, at the historic meeting point between drawing and the print. Unlike the use of colored pens and tracing paper which are common in international drawing, this exhibition also shows the penchant for hard materials, especially wood products. The special fondness of plywood is perhaps a local thing; the influence of the Israeli artist Raffi Lavie, whose simple and unpretentious materiality became identified as an Israeli aesthetic. Along with the “woody” texture, the wooden board is characterized by its toughness, which calls for a forceful, counter action of scratching and engraving. Other materials, among them dry leaves, insects, coffee, glass or metal wire and the development of drawing into a three-dimensional object placed on the floor or hanging from the ceiling, clearly demonstrate the tendency toward expansion and variety in drawing today. Of course, traditional techniques of pencil, charcoal or ink on paper are also present in works by both established and young artists. Yet the opening up of various possibilities in drawing is indicative of its growing status as an independent multi-faceted medium. Abstract drawing, the outcome of the modernist tradition, is in the minority in this exhibition. On the whole, these works focus on material and surface; on making a mark, or leaving traces of an action: these drawings are rich and sensual, preserving the presence of the body, of mass, of space, and of internal movement. In contrast, figurative and narrative drawing is dominant in the exhibition. The prevalent romantic trend in contemporary landscape painting and photography is also found in drawing. To a large extent this is a romanticist rather than a romantic look; building on the nineteenth century Romantic Movement’s cultural framework: wide and misty landscapes, empty and refined “contemplative” nature, or enchanting and dramatic views. Some landscapes also echo the Impressionists. With a few exceptions, these images do not stem from a direct encounter with nature, rather, they are the fruit of processed memories mediated by photographic materials and the assimilation of romantic concepts of powerful “primordial” and open nature, always authentic, unconquered and noble. The actual landscapes are of the built environment: landscapes of the Settlements, landscapes of conquest, cityscapes of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem or views of the surroundings close to home. Unlike the charms of the romantic landscapes, the cityscapes evoke a disturbing feeling of a place on the verge of disintegration. Among the relatively small number of works in the exhibition that relate to the political and military reality in our region there are images of airplanes and explosions, a group of mysterious figures planning an action in a “Middle-Eastern” environment, a blindfolded prisoner and figure-like stains on flannel cloth for cleaning guns. Conversely, the private world of the home and family make up a significant part of the exhibition’s works: family members, portraits from childhood, memories and pictures from the world of children, especially from the world of little and prepubescent girls. This is a world of innocence and fantasy that is simultaneously a world of vulnerability and fear. The relative prominence of childhood as a theme in the repertoire of contemporary art may be linked to the growing importance given to childhood and youth in today’s society and culture. Like the attraction to romantic landscapes, the partiality for the world of childhood in contemporary art represents a sort of nostalgia and yearning for the innocent and pure world of the past. After all, the invention of childhood is linked to the Romantic Movement and its ideas about nature in general and human nature in particular: childhood is perceived as a “natural” existence, of virginal and “inviolate” nature continually threatened and in need of protection. The presence of childhood in recent drawing is further strengthened by adopting school children’s equipment such as colored felt-tip pens along with the influence of comic strips and illustrations, usually identified with children’s literature. These influences are especially noticeable in narrative-fantastic drawings that combine horror with humor. Beside personal and familial stories, contemporary drawing also turns to images borrowed from the natural sciences and scientific books: insects, leaves and plants, whether depicted or collected as found objects, along with portrayals of animals and human organs. This is a gaze of fascination, not so different than the enchanting romantic landscapes. Some of the images even allude to a desire for touch and connection between the wonderful world of flora and fauna and the human world. At times this coupling breeds monstrous or humorous images. The figurative tradition in drawing is represented in the exhibition – more in subject matter than in modes of execution – in various portraits, including self-portraits, as well as figure drawings, often single figures of blurred identity, floating in an expanse of emptiness. While many of the drawings are narrative in nature only a few use actual text. Thus the tradition that links drawing to writing and the conceptual tradition that turned the word into image are modestly represented, whereas the book appears as metaphor for tradition and law or as an artistic format.The third Biennale for Drawing, larger and with more participants than its predecessors, offers a varied and complex picture of artistic practice in Israel in the field of drawing; showing an awareness of international trends along with certain local preferences. The wide and cross-generational span creates unexpected encounters between artists revealing tendencies that depart from the well-known local schools of art. That said, within the many, the exhibition strives to guard each artist’s individual place and voice.