Press Releases 

Sphere

A joint exhibition by artists Ayelet Carmi and Meirav Heiman

Curator: Shira Friedman

The exhibition provides a critical gender-oriented view of the exclusion of women from the counting of the Omer and the phenomenon of the exclusion of women from public places in Israel, especially with regard to singing

The Schechter Gallery, located at the Neve Schechter Center in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, is opening a new exhibition – Sphere. The exhibition, which presents works by artists Ayelet Carmi and Meirav Heiman and is curated by Shira Friedman, is a time-specific, original artistic display commissioned by the Schechter Gallery

The exhibition will feature a four-channel video installation by composer Maayan Tzdaka, a window installation, and a mural.

The exhibition is time-specific and responds to the counting of the Omer, which takes place between Passover and Shavuot. In response to the exclusion of women from the counting of the Omer and relating to the exclusion of women in Israel today, the artists have created an original video installation in which a women’s choir is heard in four voices. The video shows the singers as they roll over a huge apparatus that rotates 49 times during each singer’s performance, symbolizing the 49 days of the counting of the Omer. The video was filmed in a greenhouse, which is an area protected from the ravages of time and weather. Here, in this neutral vegetal zone, the singers contend with the tremendous difficulty of singing while counting and rolling. The singers count in Hebrew, Amharic, Arabic, and English, creating a homogeneous feminine community.

The window installation Jaffa Road faces Eilat Street, a bustling thoroughfare, and creates a dialogue with the passing crowd outside. The window shows two scientists measuring something by means of an ancient astronomical clock.

In addition, a mural connected to the themes of the exhibition will be exhibited.

In Greek, the word “sphera” means ball, and is also used to describe celestial bodies. The music composed especially for the exhibition is influenced by the “music of the spheres,” an ancient Greek concept that regards the proportions of the movements of the celestial spheres – the moon, the sun and the planets – as a kind of music.

The exhibition provides a critical gender-oriented look at the exclusion of women from the counting of the Omer and the phenomenon of women’s exclusion from public places in Israel, especially with regard to singing. The women’s choir symbolizes an alternative feminine sphere in which a public ceremony that sanctifies women’s singing and views it as purely aesthetic is held.

In the framework of the exhibition several events will be held:

April 13, 2018 at 11:00 The opening performance: A sound performance  led by Maayan Tzdaka and her ensemble.

April 26, 2018 A performance by Yael Deckelbaum

May 10, 2018 A hilarious stand-up performance. Meital Shapiro, Shir Reuven, and Daniel Buxe will each perform a sidesplitting stand-up routine.

June 14, 2018 Performance “SurFace” –  What will you say to the Land of Israel if you meet it face to face? “SurFace,” a performance by artist Nofar Sela, invites the audience to talk to the Land of Israel imagined as the figure of a woman. The audience and the country will draw a new kind of map together, one that connects geography with the body and seeks to map a way home.

July 28, 2018 Closing Event- A Wa music show

The exhibition will open on Friday, April 13, 2018, at 11:00 and close on Friday, August 3, 2018

at the Shechter Gallery, The Neve Schechter Center, 42 Chelouche St.

Neve Tzedek, Tel Aviv-Jaffa

Admission is free of charge.

Opening Hours:

Sunday through Thursday: 9:00–17:00

Friday: 11:00–13:30