Locust Projects presents Homeline, a new site-specific installation by mutlidisciplinary artists Tal Amitai-Lavi and Tal Frank. The exhibition opens to the public with a reception on Thursday, June 10 from 6-8pm, and is on view through August 7 from 11am-5pm. Admission is free.
Homeline is inspired by the architectural structures of Locust Projects’ Main Gallery. The installation is composed of three domestic elements created out of unexpectedly weightless materials, including light and delicately-installed nylon strings- a window that separates the space, a projected carpet, and a slowly flowing curtain. These objects generate a succinct, close-knit architectural-sculptural setting in black and white. The installation explores reflections, inversions, illusions, and space disruptions and creates an illusionistic, dreamlike environment. Viewers are confronted by their perception and senses, entering a world whose foundations are fragile, in which life-sized architectural structures have lost their functionality and expected physicality.
The work is further informed by, and reflects upon, the situation faced by the world in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, as everyone found themselves locked inside their homes. The exhibition explores this feeling of a disorienting altered reality within a domestic setting that is both familiar and unsettling.
Upon entering the space, viewers will see a window made of nylon strings installed within a wall, reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp’s Fresh Widow and serving as a metaphor for the barrier between the visible and the invisible, reality and illusion.
A video animation of an ornamental carpet will be projected directly on the gallery’s floor, utilizing 3D software to create the illusion of realistic material and movement as the projected image moves continuously across the flat, still surface of the floor. The constantly-moving pattern of the carpet is inspired by the architecture of Locust Projects’ Main Gallery space, each shape in motion corresponding to a wall, a doorway, or a column.
In the back of the space, a large-scale curtain made through obsessive, meticulous work using thousands of thin, transparent nylon strings is illuminated with beams of light to create an illusion of motion even while the strings hang still.
The visitor within the installation experiences a ghostly, contemplative atmosphere surrounded by translucent, light, airy material. Domestic, familiar objects have volume without weight, their expected physical forms, or their original functionality, exploring concepts of materiality and conceptuality.
Animation: Arie Willem de Jongh
Photography featured on storefront: Zony Maya
Tal Amitai-Lavi and Tal Frank: Homeline is made possible, in part, by support from Artis, www.artis.art. Tal Amitai-Lavi's work in Homeline is made possible, in part, by support from the Ministry of Culture, Foundation for Independent Artists, Israel. This project was selected as part of Locust Projects’ Main Gallery Open Call by panelists Ivan Toth Depeña, multidisciplinary artist and Locust Projects alum (2016); Kori Newkirk, painter, multimedia artist, and Locust Projects alum (2005); and Elizabeth Withstandley, video installation artist and co-founder of Locust Projects.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Tal Amitai-Lavi and Tal Frank are multidisciplinary visual artists. They are interested in the transitions between two-dimensional and three-dimensional, and in creating an elusive space between emptiness and fullness. Using a variety of methods and materials, they create worlds whose foundations are fragile and falling apart. The sculptural objects consist of thousands of clean, thin nylon strings or video projection that build life-size structures - a bookshelf, column, door and architectural elements - that have lost their functionality. These sculptural works are triggered by lighting which is the volume of elements, lightness and weightlessness of the elements.
Tal Amitai-Lavi
Tal Amitai-Lavi (born in Israel, 1969) is a multidisciplinary artist engaging in painting, drawing, sculpting and installation work. She graduated cum laude from the Hamidrsha- Faculty of Arts, Beit Berl College in 1994, and received her B.A. (cum laude) from the Multidisciplinary Program of the Arts, Tel Aviv University in 2001. She has an MFA in Creative Arts from the University of Haifa (2010).
Selected solo exhibitions include: “Green on the Outside Red on the Inside“ (Basis Gallery, Herzliya, 2017);“Light Construction” (Chelouche Gallery, Tel Aviv, 2014); “(temporary) Happiness” (Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, 2004) ; “Aleph for Ohel [tent] / Bet for Bayit [house]” (Noga Gallery, Tel Aviv, 2001); “We are a Bound Family” (The Kibbutz Art Galery, Tel Aviv, 1996).
Select group exhibitions include: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Tel Aviv museum; Haifa Museum; Petah-Tikva museum; Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art. She has also shown her work in prominent venues abroad in Germany, New York, London, Belgium.
In 2016, she was selected to be a finalist in “Arte Laguna Prize“, Arsenale, Venice and in September 2017 she participated in Nakanojo Biennale for contemporary art, Japan.
Amitai-Lavi’s work straddles the boundary between two-dimensional and three-dimensional. It is characterized by love of craftsmanship, laborious processes, minimalism, sensitivity to details and an exploration of unusual materials. In her recent works, Tal Amitai-Lavi shows images that mark out elusive spaces of emptiness and fullness. Through a variety of methods and different materials such as sewing thread, soda powder, kinetic sand, suction cups, nylon strings etc., she creates worlds whose foundations are fragile and disintegrating. These worlds seemingly materialize from concrete images yet they create a disturbing mental atmosphere. Her unique work aims to transcend the private case and address universal values with which any viewer may identify.
WEBSITE: www.talamitai-lavi.com
INTERVIEW: Light Construction, 2014 at Chelouche Gallery for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
Tal Frank
Tal Frank is a visual artist based in Mexico City. She has extensive experience in consulting in the areas of sculpture and industrial design, and is a Professor of Sculpture at several colleges as well as a curator and producer of multidisciplinary art events and site-specific installations.
Frank has exhibited solo exhibitions and created site specific installations around the world, including the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel; Rosenfeld Gallery, Tel Aviv; Institute Cultural Mexico Israel, Mexico; Museum Haifa of contemporary art Israel; Berliner Liste, Art Fair, Berlin; among others. Frank has exhibited in various group exhibitions including HIT Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia; La casa Invisible, Malaga, Spain; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and Ashdod Museum of Art, Israel.
Grants and awards include the Israel Fund for Young Artists, the Israel Foundation Scholarship Fund, the Rabinovich Foundation Fund and the Pais Culture Council, Scholarship for Culture and Arts and OUTSET Foundation among others. Frank participates in residency programs such as AIRIE Artist-in-Residence-in-the-Everglades, Florida; Soma Summer Programming, Mexico City; Kineret.net Technology and Art, Israel; and the Asylum Art All-Star Latin America Retreat, Mexico, among others.
Frank received a master’s degree from the University of Haifa and Bachelors degrees from the Midrasha School of Art, Beit Berl College, Israel and holds an art teaching certificate. Most recently, Frank is the founder and artistic director of the artist-run Radio 28 International Exchange Program located in the historic center of Mexico City.
WEBSITE: www.tal-frank.com
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