Thursday, September 28, 2017

Ashurbanipal


"Ashurbanipal", by Saadya

in the “Paper Heroes” exhibition
Jaffa Museum, Israel
October 5 – December 30, 2017

Curator:  Ilan Garibi

Strap your sword upon a hero's thigh...” (Psalms 45: 4)

This king is not my hero. He is, however, the hero of my hero.

My hero is a Jewish poet who lived in the 7th century BCE in exile in Babylon, then moved to Jerusalem: one of the early Zionists. The poetry he wrote in both locations was to shape Jewish religious experience down through the ages, and many of his verses, whole and in fragments, have made their way into central portions of the Hebrew prayerbook. In their own day too they influenced contemporary Hebrew literary productions such as the Book of Jonah. Yes indeed: a hero of mine, all around.

His hero — for so he describes him in Psalm 45, a poem written for this king in the year 663 BCE, in Nineveh, on the occasion of his 'wedding' with the daughter of Tyre — was King Ashurbanipal: the last great ruler of the Assyrian Empire, and by his own account the first truly literate one, who

Monday, July 10, 2017

"Press-Origami", by Masha Revva

Origami Tessellations + Press-Prints on Paper
June 20 -- July 4th, 2017

Jerusalem Artisans Gallery 
(Beit Ot Hamotzar Hayerushalmi)
12 Hebron Street, Jerusalem, Israel







This is a fine, understated exhibit by a leading Israeli origami artist, strangely moving given that the works in it are entirely non-figurative. It brings together tessellations—tile-like patterns from folded paper, each built out of minute folds of a single, uncut sheet—with old-fashioned color press-prints.  These too are on paper, made by passing the same kinds of folded objects under a heavy roller after inking. What's surprising is that even though everything here is pattern and geometry, so much emotion manages to be conveyed: even the specific feelings of nostalgia, hope, determination.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Israeli Origami 2: The Designer vs. the Sculptor

         Ilan Garibi | Saadya Sternberg

Hankin Design Gallery    
109 Hankin Street,  Holon,  Israel    
March 29 - May 5 2017
          
This show combines Ilan Garibi’s fabulous explorations of non-paper materials in his fashion and product design—all based on origami patterns he's invented—with my own efforts make original figure-sculpture from origami, mostly in paper but also in a few other types of material. Both of us think of ourselves as carrying origami into new precincts.
Saadya Sternberg, "Ernestine" (2006)

Ilan Garibi with Ofir Zucker for Aqua Creations. 
Photo: Albi Serfati