The Readymade Centennial

 

Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa

Curator: Ruti Direktor

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Rakefet Viner Omer paints on canvases that used to belong to Moshe Gershuni (One of Israel's most established painters). Gershuni became ill and can no longer paint on large canvases, and they were put up for sale. His name is present in the title of the paintings - Self-Portrait on Canvas that Belonged to Moishe and Moishe is Sick. Can white canvas that has yet to be painted be considered readymade just because it belonged to another painter? Is it enough to know that Gershuni planned to paint on these canvases to turn them into a readymade painting? And is there a difference between Gershuni's pants, which the poet Aharon Shabtai wears, and the canvases on which the artist paints? The readymade dimension is evident also in Viner Omer's painterly language, in which it is possible to detect visual clichés and pictorial mannerisms - brushstrokes of bold expression, thin drips of paint, chunks of color spread directly from the tube onto the canvas. From the beginning of her artistic career, Viner Omer has worked in the territories of readymade, even when she engaged in writing, in video and in installations.

 

Now she is doing this in the field of painting, oil on canvas, a medium that is entirely a realm of originality and uniqueness. The big challenge she poses to herself is to walk on paved paths, readymade peaks of high culture, and to find her way between the debilitating cynicism of an outlook of "there's nothing new under the sun" and the real passion to paint.

The Readymade Centennial

 

Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa

Curator: Ruti Direktor