Curator

David Sperber

Artists

Helène Aylon, Arie Aroch, Avraham Eilat, Ofra Erel, Andi Arnovitz, Netanel Bollag, Raya Bruckenthal, Nechama Golan, Jack Jano, Yael Kanarek, Roo Cohen Eilam, Raffi Lavie, Shimon Lev, Eti Levi, Michal Na’aman, Efrat Nehama, Nona Orbach, Israel Rabinovitz, Dafna Shalom, Joseph Sassoon Semah, Michael Sgan Cohen, Arik Weiss, Drora Weitzman

Venue

Museum on the Seam

Opening Event

Thursday 14.3.24 (at 19:00)

Orayta presents Contemporary artists making use of sacred texts in their work. Working with the materiality of the text itself - copying, covering, stamping and blurring it, the pieces celebrate the value of the sacred text precisely through what tradition describes as a materiality of holiness. The transition from referring to the content of the text to examining its physical materials and pattern is one of the most prominent trends in Contemporary Jewish art.

The turn from story to form, and from preoccupation with semantics to treating the physical dimensions of the texts crystallizes into works in which the materiality of the text and the idea of holiness embedded in the tangible becomes the content of the work. Out of the fragments of words, and with texts sterilized from their framework, this materiality is present in a way that was not apparent until now. The exhibition Orayta seeks to highlight this phenomenon in its various incarnations, and suggests reading it as a new type of Torah learning.

Artwork from Top to Bottom:

Roo Cohen Eilam, Doe 2018

Joseph Sassoon Semah, Introduction to the Principle of Relative Expression 1979

Eti Levi, When I Erased God, 2014

Avraham Eilat, Torah Preserves 1993-1995

Nona Orbach, Stubborn Mezuzah 2004