2019

Solo Show / Be’eri Gallery

Dr. Ziva Yellin, Sophie Barzon-Maccai, Curators

By Dr. Ziva Yellin

Maayan Shahar, an outstanding graduate of the Ceramic and Glass Design Department at Bezalel, and a master’s student in the Arts track at Bezalel, opens her first solo exhibition at Be’eri Gallery, halfway between the two studios where she works, in Tel Aviv and Kibbutz Tzalim. Her hybrid installations are influenced by her surroundings, moving between the quiet desert landscape and vibrant urbanism, embodying the search for impossible connections and the tensions between immediate nature and cultivated culture, and between stillness and movement.

The exhibition at Be’eri Gallery combines a variety of natural and synthetic materials in a limited color palette. Some materials are static, while others rotate on their axis simultaneously and at different rhythms. Natural materials she finds in her surroundings, such as branches and dry shrubs, are unexpectedly and somewhat ironically combined with industrial materials like fabrics, threads, rubber, car tires, welded iron, and motors, creating fascinating sculptural forms. Some stand suspended in space, while others dance, spinning on their axis in a puzzling, meaningless manner, as if brought to life. These objects evoke a magical sense in the viewer, and their simplicity is captivating.

From a tall wardrobe in the gallery space, dry branches and twigs emerge, cascading to the floor like a waterfall. A branch is tied to another by a shrink connector, borrowed from the world of electrical engineering. The “natural” tangle created artificially becomes an organic rhizome with no open ends.

The motif of dry twigs is revisited in three other works, where the artist connects a dry shrub, an Indian mallow, to a black iron arm and a motor that spins on its axis. In its natural state, the shrub dries out, detaches from its roots, and rolls in the wind, dispersing its seeds. The connection to the motor artificially creates the movement of wind and rolling.

A dry cane with a feathery flower head is tied with a black “collar” made of fine threads that flutter dramatically as the cane spins on its motorized axis, giving the cane the appearance of a dancing scarecrow. Next to the dry branches and shrubs, a tall sculpture stands—an upright column entirely covered in “fingers” of sewn black fabric, filled and stitched together. When it spins using an industrial motor, it looks like a car washing device. Instead of cleaning, it caresses gently or lashes aggressively.

Beside it, on the floor, lies a “Hibiscus.” The same small black “caressing” fingers, turned upside down, create a black flower that grows from the floor.

A wash of white neon light gives the gallery space a cold industrial character, accompanied by a repetitive mechanical sound amplified by frequency picking (pickup) scanning the rotation of the shrub and producing sounds of motor squeaks and friction, simulating the rustling of wind, falling water, or the crackling of fire filling the gallery space.

The exhibition’s title, “Guest: Ghost,” is a wordplay, echoing the familiar phrase “long-suffering” but evoking the idea of a guest, visiting, and presence. The ghost here is the very wind generated by the spinning motors, the movement the artist infuses into her sculptures, but it is also the ghost of the place.

A first solo exhibition for a promising and talented young artist, executed with precision, skill, and vision.

Kuchiya / Shrub, iron, motor, sound pickup, amplifier, speakers, cable / 90 X 160 X 110 cm / Image No. 2,3

Black Wind / Fabric, iron, motor, timer, electrical cable / 110 X 110 X 190 cm / Image No. 4,9

Rhizome / Branches, rubber / 200 X 250 cm / Image No. 5,6,7

Chain Reaction / Tires, iron wire / 50 X 60 X 200 cm / Image No. 8