Homage to Man, Homage to God (Scribble it Down project, Hanina Gallery, Tel Aviv)
"Scribble it Down" was founded by artist Einat Moglad as a web-project. The project gave artists from different countries the opportunity to share one initially blank sheet where they responded to each other's work by adding, modifying, using or even erasing elements from the former's artist's creations. Each group included 4 artists and each participant went through the process 4 times. This way, each artist had the opportunity to receive the sheet as a tabula rasa, to respond and get responded to, and to seal the project with a final, unmodifiable statement.
In August 2015, "Scribble it Down" was hosted by Hanina Gallery, a white cube gallery and a non-virtual space in Tel Aviv. For the project, the participants were divided into pairs, and each couple received the space for 3 hours in order to create an artistic response to the traces left by the artists that had worked there before them.
Unlike in the web project, this time the process was not repeated and thus, the place each artist was given in the list was arbitrary and final. In my perception, this modification in the scheme was crucial: for if in the web project, each artist had the opportunity to go through all the stages of the game, in this case only the two artists at the end of the list had the privilege to respond and modify the others' work, knowing their statements will remain untouched. Another privileged (or under-privileged) pair, received the empty gallery, having to respond, not to the works of others but to the white cube itself, facing thus the typical "Horror Vacui". Their artistic moves were the starting point of the whole process and at the same time, their works were destined to be the most affected of all.
Given these unequal conditions, since the very beginning I perceived the project as a game of power where the struggle between the idea of a collective piece and the individual aspiration to leave a signature occupies a central place. But if on one hand, I thought of physical destruction as a lame solution, on the other, I did feel an urge to overpower the rest with one original, unnapealable statement.
My response to this particular tension was more of an intellectual exercise than an aesthetic one, and had to do with the acts of contemplation and appropriation. In a way, I was inspired by the work of a curator, whose gaze and interpretation gives a new meaning to the compilation of works by various artists gathered in one space. Another source of inspiration for me was the bible.
In Genesis 2\19, the Man names all the animals God created as an act both of acknowledgment and superiority; it is also an act of giving and taking. And this is exactly what I did when my turn in Hanina Gallery came. After carefully observing the works by the artists that came before me, I gave them names and thus appropriated them (part of my action was to decide where a piece began and where ended, delineating hybrid works or unifying creations that were separated in space). This way, a ready-made old family picture hanged on the wall became "Homage to Benedetto Croce" and a hybrid made of two paintings and a beautiful string installation by my assigned partner, Naamah Berkovitz, became "Song-Bird", etc. Under each name I gave, I signed: "A piece by Rinat Schnadower".
Knowing there was still one last couple of participants to give the space the final touch, I created 2 signs, this time opting to sign, not as Rinat Schnadower, but as "the organizers". In the first sign, I asked the participants to "treat with respect the works of the others" and in the others I commanded them to "leave the gallery clean and presentable". These signs were created with particular joy and laughter, for I was sure everyone would understand the joke. Surprisingly, in the unveiling event I discovered that the last participants actually took them seriously and that one of them even got mad at the organizers for their "patronizing attitude". Unaware of my manipulation, the artist fell right into the trap, taking them off as an act of protest.
As for the naming action, in some of the labels, my name was erased, but the names I gave to the pieces were left untouched, so most of the works (except for the few displaced or erased), kept the significance and context I gave them.
Participants: Einat Moglad, Shira Tabachnik, Naamah Berkovitz, Hagai Izenberg, Inbar Frim, Savyon Fishlovitch, Leeron Tur-Kaspa, Oscar Abosh, Ron Winter, Inbar Frim, Yfat Giladi, Rinat Schnadower
In August 2015, "Scribble it Down" was hosted by Hanina Gallery, a white cube gallery and a non-virtual space in Tel Aviv. For the project, the participants were divided into pairs, and each couple received the space for 3 hours in order to create an artistic response to the traces left by the artists that had worked there before them.
Unlike in the web project, this time the process was not repeated and thus, the place each artist was given in the list was arbitrary and final. In my perception, this modification in the scheme was crucial: for if in the web project, each artist had the opportunity to go through all the stages of the game, in this case only the two artists at the end of the list had the privilege to respond and modify the others' work, knowing their statements will remain untouched. Another privileged (or under-privileged) pair, received the empty gallery, having to respond, not to the works of others but to the white cube itself, facing thus the typical "Horror Vacui". Their artistic moves were the starting point of the whole process and at the same time, their works were destined to be the most affected of all.
Given these unequal conditions, since the very beginning I perceived the project as a game of power where the struggle between the idea of a collective piece and the individual aspiration to leave a signature occupies a central place. But if on one hand, I thought of physical destruction as a lame solution, on the other, I did feel an urge to overpower the rest with one original, unnapealable statement.
My response to this particular tension was more of an intellectual exercise than an aesthetic one, and had to do with the acts of contemplation and appropriation. In a way, I was inspired by the work of a curator, whose gaze and interpretation gives a new meaning to the compilation of works by various artists gathered in one space. Another source of inspiration for me was the bible.
In Genesis 2\19, the Man names all the animals God created as an act both of acknowledgment and superiority; it is also an act of giving and taking. And this is exactly what I did when my turn in Hanina Gallery came. After carefully observing the works by the artists that came before me, I gave them names and thus appropriated them (part of my action was to decide where a piece began and where ended, delineating hybrid works or unifying creations that were separated in space). This way, a ready-made old family picture hanged on the wall became "Homage to Benedetto Croce" and a hybrid made of two paintings and a beautiful string installation by my assigned partner, Naamah Berkovitz, became "Song-Bird", etc. Under each name I gave, I signed: "A piece by Rinat Schnadower".
Knowing there was still one last couple of participants to give the space the final touch, I created 2 signs, this time opting to sign, not as Rinat Schnadower, but as "the organizers". In the first sign, I asked the participants to "treat with respect the works of the others" and in the others I commanded them to "leave the gallery clean and presentable". These signs were created with particular joy and laughter, for I was sure everyone would understand the joke. Surprisingly, in the unveiling event I discovered that the last participants actually took them seriously and that one of them even got mad at the organizers for their "patronizing attitude". Unaware of my manipulation, the artist fell right into the trap, taking them off as an act of protest.
As for the naming action, in some of the labels, my name was erased, but the names I gave to the pieces were left untouched, so most of the works (except for the few displaced or erased), kept the significance and context I gave them.
Participants: Einat Moglad, Shira Tabachnik, Naamah Berkovitz, Hagai Izenberg, Inbar Frim, Savyon Fishlovitch, Leeron Tur-Kaspa, Oscar Abosh, Ron Winter, Inbar Frim, Yfat Giladi, Rinat Schnadower
