Galia Yahav: Self Portrait
An exhibition by Rinat Schnadower
Rosenfeld Gallery is pleased to present a first solo exhibition by Rinat Schnadower. In her show, "Galia Yahav - Self Portrait", the artist deals with themes such as gaze and representation in the field called "the art world" through art critic Galia Yahav's Facebook persona. Through video, photography and sound, Schnadower examines the role exchange that occurred in the art arena since artists and curators realized that the best way to make the Critic "see" them is to respond to her contents, to be present in her Facebook profile and in other words: to see her.
Schnadower's involvement with Galia Yahav's character is not only about the latter being the most influential art critic in Israel, but revolves also around Yahav's image in the social media. Focusing in her work on themes such as self-representation, social and theater performance and gaze, the artist tried to discover if, by performing a meticulous archival investigation of Yahav's Facebook profile, she will be able to reach the person behind the persona, or is this persona merely the product of a fostered image.
This investigation lasted about a year, during which Schnadower collected, documented and catalogued all Yahav's Facebook contents, from declarative posts (personal experiences, political views, works of art the critic likes, selfies…), to comments by her followers and fans, to the art reviews. This archive provided the artist the prime-materials for the works presented in the exhibition. For the Sand Works, for example, Schnadower chose "representative" posts by Yahav, that while pretending to present complexity, spontaneity and depth of character, make their owner seem to the audience like a product or a brand. In the sound piece Mirror-Mirror, different comments by Yahav's fans to her posts reverberate in a confined space; the PowerPoint work, Artist, Test Yourself, deals with the absurdity in the artists’ attempts to make their works fit to the establishment's taste, represented by the critic's taste; in the video Trying to Break Through, Schnadower exposes the hierarchy between the artist and the critic through her futile attempts to get Yahav to see her exhibitions while in the photograph Coup d'Etat (Self Portrait in front of "Habibti: a State for all its Citizens" by Zamir Shatz) she occupies the VIP list that the artist Zamir Shatz chose to represent in his work (Rosenfeld Gallery, 2014) and hides Galia Yahav's portrait in a symbolic act of coup.
Through the works, Schnadower reorganized the character of the star-critic, very much like a portraitist that appropriates and interprets the subject in front of her, immortalizing thus, not so much the subject of the painting, but herself. This act of immortalization, says Schnadower, is a victory of the traditional artistic, reflective, representation over the compulsive self-representation in the social media or, in other words: the victory of the portrait over the selfie.
Rinat Schnadower (1978) is a visual artist, an author and a literary translator. She has exhibited her work in ExTeresa Arte Actual in Mexico City, in Sprechsaal Gallery, Berlin, in the Artists' House, Tel Aviv, in P8 Gallery, Hanina Gallery and Binyamin Gallery, among other places. This is her fourth solo exhibition.
Complete list of the works in the exhibition:
Trying to Break Through - video
Artist, Test Yourself - PowerPoint
Mirror, Mirror - sound
Series Composed of Nine Parts (Homage to Daniel Sack) - Facebook performance
Love - Photography
The Sand Works - photography
Coup D'etat (Self portrait in front of Zamir Shatz’s work “Habibti a State for All Its Citizens”) - photography
An exhibition by Rinat Schnadower
Rosenfeld Gallery is pleased to present a first solo exhibition by Rinat Schnadower. In her show, "Galia Yahav - Self Portrait", the artist deals with themes such as gaze and representation in the field called "the art world" through art critic Galia Yahav's Facebook persona. Through video, photography and sound, Schnadower examines the role exchange that occurred in the art arena since artists and curators realized that the best way to make the Critic "see" them is to respond to her contents, to be present in her Facebook profile and in other words: to see her.
Schnadower's involvement with Galia Yahav's character is not only about the latter being the most influential art critic in Israel, but revolves also around Yahav's image in the social media. Focusing in her work on themes such as self-representation, social and theater performance and gaze, the artist tried to discover if, by performing a meticulous archival investigation of Yahav's Facebook profile, she will be able to reach the person behind the persona, or is this persona merely the product of a fostered image.
This investigation lasted about a year, during which Schnadower collected, documented and catalogued all Yahav's Facebook contents, from declarative posts (personal experiences, political views, works of art the critic likes, selfies…), to comments by her followers and fans, to the art reviews. This archive provided the artist the prime-materials for the works presented in the exhibition. For the Sand Works, for example, Schnadower chose "representative" posts by Yahav, that while pretending to present complexity, spontaneity and depth of character, make their owner seem to the audience like a product or a brand. In the sound piece Mirror-Mirror, different comments by Yahav's fans to her posts reverberate in a confined space; the PowerPoint work, Artist, Test Yourself, deals with the absurdity in the artists’ attempts to make their works fit to the establishment's taste, represented by the critic's taste; in the video Trying to Break Through, Schnadower exposes the hierarchy between the artist and the critic through her futile attempts to get Yahav to see her exhibitions while in the photograph Coup d'Etat (Self Portrait in front of "Habibti: a State for all its Citizens" by Zamir Shatz) she occupies the VIP list that the artist Zamir Shatz chose to represent in his work (Rosenfeld Gallery, 2014) and hides Galia Yahav's portrait in a symbolic act of coup.
Through the works, Schnadower reorganized the character of the star-critic, very much like a portraitist that appropriates and interprets the subject in front of her, immortalizing thus, not so much the subject of the painting, but herself. This act of immortalization, says Schnadower, is a victory of the traditional artistic, reflective, representation over the compulsive self-representation in the social media or, in other words: the victory of the portrait over the selfie.
Rinat Schnadower (1978) is a visual artist, an author and a literary translator. She has exhibited her work in ExTeresa Arte Actual in Mexico City, in Sprechsaal Gallery, Berlin, in the Artists' House, Tel Aviv, in P8 Gallery, Hanina Gallery and Binyamin Gallery, among other places. This is her fourth solo exhibition.
Complete list of the works in the exhibition:
Trying to Break Through - video
Artist, Test Yourself - PowerPoint
Mirror, Mirror - sound
Series Composed of Nine Parts (Homage to Daniel Sack) - Facebook performance
Love - Photography
The Sand Works - photography
Coup D'etat (Self portrait in front of Zamir Shatz’s work “Habibti a State for All Its Citizens”) - photography
