Yigal Nizri "Living Growing"
Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv
October 3 - November 9, 2002
Yigal Nizri creates a sensual pictorial installation at the heart of which stand graphic images of the biblical seven species (wheat, barley, olive, fig, date, pomegranate, and grape). The depiction, imposed directly on the walls, will employ materials used in large-scale public advertising. In addition to the illustrations (see attached images) articles of clothing and other sewn objects will be placed throughout the space.
In Israel, the iconography of the seven species ("A land of wheat, barley, olive, fig, etc.") represents the abundance/fecundity of the "holy land." Thus, the installation addresses questions of cultural belonging, origin, and "roots".
Through the seven species, Yigal Nizri calls the dominant images adopted by Israeli culture into question. While the seven species signify attachment (to the land), they also attest to Israel's symbolic detachment from its geographic and cultural surroundings. The seven species bespeak a would be utopian oasis in a 'Levantine desert wilderness,' a fruitful eroticism amidst an 'arid impotence.'
Yigal Nizri is an artist and designer living and working in New York and Tel Aviv. A graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem (1998), he participated in the "World Views" studio residency program on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center in Fall/Winter 2000-2001.
DVIR GALLERY
11 Nahum st., Tel Aviv 63503
