Most art exhibitions and installations usually occupy pristine locations such as galleries with white washed spaces. This is not the case, though, with Gal Weinstein's "Sun Stand Still" (2017) at the Israeli Pavilion at the 57th International Art Exhibition in Venice (on until tomorrow).
The pavilion - designed by architect Zeev Rechter in the spirit of the Bauhaus and of the International Style and inaugurated in 1952 - was indeed transformed into an abandoned and haunted mold-covered site by Gal Weinstein.
Behind some of the mold traces on the ground floors visitors will be able to detect pale patterns in a wallpaper-like configuration that maybe hint at a long-gone human presence, maybe destroyed by an apocalypse. But is this real or fake mold laboriously created by the artist?
"This is all real," Weinstein explains. "The colours you see come indeed from a chemical reaction: the rusty effect comes from every day liquids such as Diet Coke or vinegar and the technical process behind the works in this pavilion is very much connected to the physical experience that visitors should have when they walk around these works."
No brush, ink or paint was used to create the mold effects. All the works on the ground floor and walls were put together in Weinstein's Tel Aviv-based studio with the additional help of ten assistants who worked for six months on creating the panels.
Throughout the years, Weinstein has learnt to master steel wool and developed technical skills that enable him to "tame" it, transforming it into "painting" or an illusory "drawing" tool. Weinstein assistants manually unraveled the wool skein and then glued the bits onto a sticky paper or wood panel. The pieces were then treated with various liquids to create different shades of rust. At the same time people from the Venice team prepared a wood grid on which the panels were then installed.
"Rather than seeing mold growing from the wall, I applied it on the wall in this case," Weinstein explains. "But what interests me is the reaction that comes from seeing the wall: I hope indeed that with these installations people will have a similar reaction to the one we see in Caravaggio's 'The Incredulity of Saint Thomas', with the doubting apostle putting his finger in the wound to see if it is physical or imagined. This is the gesture I expect from visitors if I manage to reach out to them with my works. It is a very natural gesture that I think comes from the body rather than the mind."
The first part of the project - "Persistent, Durable, and Invisible" - hints at poisonous mold spores. The images that can be seen here covering the floors and walls are based on the appearance of real mold discovered by Weinstein in his studio, as he observed a cup where black coffee dregs had begun to sprout spores after remaining unwashed for several days.
Coffee also inspired the process behind another work of art located on the pavilion's intermediate floor - "Jezreel Valley in the Dark" (2017). In this space actual spores grow and multiply in polyurethane trays shaped like the parts of a puzzle. The trays are filled with a mixture of black coffee dregs and sugar.
The Valley of Jezreel is one of the emblems of the agricultural settlements founded by Zionist pioneers, so it has a very special place in the Israeli collective memory, while the coffee dregs hint at the history of Venice, where the first café in Europe opened in 1645.
The work is based on an image that appeared in a previous floor installation by Weinstein - "Jezreel Valley" (2002). The latter featured a puzzle-like landscape of synthetic office carpeting, representing agricultural fields seen from an aerial perspective.
Like the steel wool rusting over time on the ground floor, this work is an "agricultural laboratory" in constant transformation, as the coffee mixture thickens in the trays, and as the character, color, and form of the spore colonies growing upon this mixture continue to change in accordance with the surrounding environmental conditions.
There is another work with a puzzle-like feeling in the pavilion, "Marble Sun", located in the interior courtyard. This is actually a new version of another work by Weinstein. The piece represents Nahalal, the first socialist village established by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe during the first two decades of the 20th century.
The circular design of the village planned by the architect Richard Kaufmann reflected a utopian, egalitarian ideology: the outer ring was divided into agricultural plots; the inner ring was designated for the farmers' shacks; and the center of the circle housed public buildings and the residences of village functionaries.
Weinstein's original puzzle was made of synthetic strips of artificial grass and cheap office carpeting in numerous shades of green, yellow, and brown. In the courtyard of the pavilion in Venice, the puzzle has been instead adjusted to the Italian environment. It is composed of Carrara marble and other stones, materials associated with memorials and commemoration, and therefore the new work raises social and political questions that undermine the immediate context of his imagery.
Located on the top floor of the pavilion, the sculptural Acrilan fiber work "El Al" could be interpeted in different ways: you may think it is just a cloud of smoke, but, seen from another perspective, the work looks like a missile or satellite frozen in the moment of being shot in the air from its launch pad.
The trail left by the missile can be interpreted in an Israeli context as an aggressive expression reflective of the political conflict in the Middle East, while in a universal context it may be read as a general expression of military violence and of the destructive potential of human actions. The piece embodies Weinstein's preoccupation with freezing time, while it also reconnects with the molds downstairs.
There is a juxtaposition of elements and inspirations in these works - architecture and the body, order and arbitrariness, purity and pollution, natural and manmade disasters. One of the most poignant juxtapositions remains the one between the artificial and the organic: this is indeed also a metaphor about Israeli and Palestinians.
Weinstein wonders indeed who is more organic to the land, who is glued there artificially and who is organically grown there. Rather than finding an answer he extends the metaphor to the whole world by prompting people to think via the organic mold growing on the first floor of the pavilion.
The post-apocapyptic mold could indeed be a sign of decay, putrefaction and destruction after a catastrophe maybe generated by the missile. The mold tells a story about wear and neglect, about the passage of time or about a time following a calamity.
As a whole the Pavilion is a dark representation of disaster and catastrophe that could also be interpreted as a response to the pervasive sense of uncertainty and crisis experienced by the entire world in recent years, from the war-torn Middle East to waves of immigration, loss of European unity, and the rise of extreme right-wing parties in many countries, so that Weinstein's works, though often inspired by Israel's collective memory, assume a new global meaning, become food for thought for each and every visitor seeing - and maybe touching - them.
"The pavilion reaches its fulfilment when the works are perceived as experiences that provoke a reaction of attraction or revulsion in the visitors and people reach out to touch them maybe," Weinstein highlights.
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