{"id":13863,"date":"2026-02-08T10:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T10:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/?post_type=exhibitions&p=13863"},"modified":"2026-04-21T09:22:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:22:36","slug":"ritual","status":"publish","type":"exhibitions","link":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/en\/exhibitions\/ritual\/","title":{"rendered":"Ritual"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Elad Amsalem’s solo exhibition, Ritual<\/em><\/strong>, symbols, actions, and events transform the space into a liminal zone between the mundane, the ceremonial, and the artistic, inviting a reconsideration of one’s relationship with art, and of the values of beauty and illusion. Amsalem challenges boundaries, inquiring where the work of art takes place.<\/p>\n

The exhibition consists of a series of repeated actions within a meaning-laden painterly space, enabling a transition from the everyday to other states of consciousness. It transpires on three levels: the act of painting as repeated application and erasure; the ritual spaces inhabited by the figures, which are set apart from routine life; and the exhibition space, where the encounter with the audience may produce a shift and suggest a fresh way of seeing. The distinction between these levels draws the viewer back to the primary ritual\u2014the act of painting.<\/p>\n

Amsalem’s ritual practice is rooted in primitivism and de-skilling: drawing away from the figure of the artist as a virtuoso master, and replacing the ideal of “good work” with simple, unraveled, symbolic gestures. Painting does not aspire to technical quality, perspective, or illusion, but to a moment of freedom that emerges within the ritual of painting.<\/p>\n

When consciousness strips itself of the “correct” principles of painting, another type of beauty reveals itself. Amsalem likens such painting to flamenco: an intuitive entanglement of gestures, which gives rise to a simple, precise solution. The moment of grace is the moment of disentangling, without perfection and without a consensual ideal of beauty.<\/p>\n

The paintings carry a sense of the outdoors and of open space, alongside a rawness that emphasizes painting as a material object, rather than a mere image. The ceramics and frayed edges function like “grounding wires,” expanding the painting and linking the two-dimensional with the three-dimensional, and the depicted world with the viewing space. Along the axis between figurative and abstract, the question arises: what is “primitive” here\u2014the freedom from the image, or rather the figures themselves? Perhaps their function is to bind the corporeal world to the painting. Rather than creating a seductive illusion, the painting exposes its underlying seams. Thus, the shift proposed by the exhibition takes us back to the starting point, to the act of painting itself as a ritual; not a mechanism of control and perfection, but a space in which unraveling, inquiry, and reinvention of the seemingly self-evident become possible.<\/p>\n

Hadas Glazer<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Events in the exhibition:<\/h5>\n
    \n
  • Saturday 18.3 at 12pm | Gallery talk with Elad Amsalem & Hadas Glazer<\/li>\n
  • Wednesday 15.4 at 5pm | Gallery talk with Elad Amsalem & Hadas Glazer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14106,"template":"","categories":[204],"artists":[5629],"exhibition":[5630],"curator":[5631],"years":[5545],"class_list":["post-13863","exhibitions","type-exhibitions","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solo-exhibitions","artists-elad-amsalem","exhibition-ritual","curator-hadas-glazer","years-2026-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibitions\/13863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibitions"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/exhibitions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"artists","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artists?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"exhibition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibition?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"curator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/curator?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"years","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/years?post=13863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}