Debts
, 2015Curated by Ofra Harnam,
Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv
The installation 'Debts' is composed of oil, pencil, and pastel works on variously sized papers that exist along the wide and undefined spectrum represented by the term ‘painting’. Some of these works may be identified as figurative, abstract, or illustrative; together, they create a sense of spatial and temporal disorientation, like an unfolding event that refuses to reach a resolution.
Attar defines the medium of painting as one charged with a threatening history, and seems to employ seemingly obvious, overused images as his main tool for examining the values of the past. In the absence of a clear-cut order or hierarchy, violence and comfort, hermetic and unraveled elements, the real object and the disintegrating image all coexist, giving rise to a subversive body of works.
Attar borrows from popular culture, literature, cinema, and everyday moments, using them as a prism through which to examine methods of cataloging and understanding art and the themes it represents. The leaps or zigzags between images depicting sexuality and power relations, to abstract works that function as patches of color or methodical pauses, reveal Attar's clear affinity with the medium of film. Treating this medium as a platform, he creates an unordered cinematic sequence in which the scenes follow upon one another without attempting to create a clear-cut narrative continuum.
The paintings on display feature a range of variegated images, including a court of law, a tent, hotdogs frying in a pan, crossed hands, and a horse’s behind. These images all underscore the abandonment of narrative as a restrained, unapologetic strategy for consolidating a position within cultural and political discourse.
Attar describes his concern with painting as "an arena of action in which arbitrary and calculated elements come together in an attempt to order a chaotic state of awareness suspended between the uncultivated and the domesticated.” It appears that the image of the prison, which hangs apart from the rest of the works, Can be read as a signifier of the gap between subjugation and liberty, revelation and concealment, awareness and its absence; more than anything, it seems to allude to an imagined discourse that is at once naive and evil.
Debts, 2015
Curated by Ofra Harnam, Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv
The installation 'Debts' is composed of oil, pencil, and pastel works on variously sized papers that exist along the wide and undefined spectrum represented by the term ‘painting’. Some of these works may be identified as figurative, abstract, or illustrative; together, they create a sense of spatial and temporal disorientation, like an unfolding event that refuses to reach a resolution.
Attar defines the medium of painting as one charged with a threatening history, and seems to employ seemingly obvious, overused images as his main tool for examining the values of the past. In the absence of a clear-cut order or hierarchy, violence and comfort, hermetic and unraveled elements, the real object and the disintegrating image all coexist, giving rise to a subversive body of works.
Attar borrows from popular culture, literature, cinema, and everyday moments, using them as a prism through which to examine methods of cataloging and understanding art and the themes it represents. The leaps or zigzags between images depicting sexuality and power relations, to abstract works that function as patches of color or methodical pauses, reveal Attar's clear affinity with the medium of film. Treating this medium as a platform, he creates an unordered cinematic sequence in which the scenes follow upon one another without attempting to create a clear-cut narrative continuum.
The paintings on display feature a range of variegated images, including a court of law, a tent, hotdogs frying in a pan, crossed hands, and a horse’s behind. These images all underscore the abandonment of narrative as a restrained, unapologetic strategy for consolidating a position within cultural and political discourse.
Attar describes his concern with painting as "an arena of action in which arbitrary and calculated elements come together in an attempt to order a chaotic state of awareness suspended between the uncultivated and the domesticated.” It appears that the image of the prison, which hangs apart from the rest of the works, Can be read as a signifier of the gap between subjugation and liberty, revelation and concealment, awareness and its absence; more than anything, it seems to allude to an imagined discourse that is at once naive and evil.