Sigalit Landau at Reuven's house
"An olive in an olive"
14 Bialik St., Tel Aviv
Special display for two weeks: 8.10.21 - 21.10.21

Sigalit Landau is an artist whose name precedes her in Israel and abroad. Her work over the years deals with local images that she brings to the forefront of the stage in unconventional ways out of deep thought and full of inspiration and imagination.
Beit Reuven previously exhibited works by Sigalit in the 2009 exhibition "Watermelons" and other exhibitions, but the current exhibition is not similar to its predecessors. This time, Sigalit chose the works and their location in the display. Sigalit is therefore also the curator. Whether it is new works created especially for this display, or incarnations and adaptations of existing works, these are works centered on familiar motifs in her work such as olive trees, watermelons or shoes. It seems that the proximity to Reuven's paintings thickens the connections in space and on the timeline and evokes intergenerational dialogue on issues of culture, identity and the incarnations of their interpretations.
The encounter on the one hand, and the distance between the romance and the almost mystical symbolism in the landscapes of Reuven's olive groves and the visibility of those olive trees in Landau's video work series "Harvest", which focuses on the figures of Palestinian harvesters, visually reflect the changes in Israel and Israeli consciousness. Similarly, the watermelon motif also expresses the complexity of the here and now. The red flesh of the fruit as an analogy to the living, exposed and wounded flesh, and to the change it undergoes under the influence of salt, expresses the perpetual change which takes place in matter. To the group of Galilean figures in the painting "Dancing from Meron" in 1926, Landau attached the shoe installation that can also be interpreted as a metaphor for situations of emissions and wanderings throughout history. In contrast to the devotees who dance with devotion and direct the sky in Reuven's painting, the circle of shoes in Sigalit Landau's "Answer" remains implicit and close to the ground ...
At a slightly distant perspective, the dialogue in the exhibition seems to indicate different perspectives, of two creators whose world of reference is shared, but from the perspective of distant time points. Landau seems to be peeling off the romantic Zionist envelope from the points of attraction she and Reuben share, and when she looks at them from a distance of time, she does so with an inquisitive look, out of sober realism and learning experience, bringing up friction points and unresolved aspects. Without being a distinctly political artist, Sigalit's works also touch on the political that is embedded in her view of life and the history of art.
Two local artists in a work that refers to the ethos of Eretz Israel. In glorification or skepticism they connect from the distance of time
To an exciting and relevant display.

Closing: 21.10.2021
Museum website:
http://www.rubinmuseum.org.il
Special visiting hours! In the exhibition :
Sunday-Thursday 10: 00-22: 00
Friday: 10: 00-15: 00 Saturday 11: 00-22: 00

ביאליק 14, תל אביב