Vol.2 - Assemblage Boutique Hotel

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Vol.2

The second exhibition at Assemblage Staircase Gallery presents two solo exhibitions by female artists in the fields of Photography and Installation, exhibited in different parts of the Assemblage venue.

Assemblage resides in a preserved building from early 19th century and uses as a boutique hotel which has been renovated and preserved according to strict conservation rules. Combined with its unique atmosphere it echo’s past events which manifest within its halls and staircase.

Its quiet backyard and the café facing the street which during twilight deems its lights and transforms into an intimate bar, combined with current times seem to all align themselves, and reflect the main concept of the two exhibitions – a story about a dream –

The meeting point of the two exhibitions which mind the space that holds them offer the viewer the possibility to enter the depths of their soul, mind and content considered. To experience a sense of freedom, to give in to and seize the moment, to get lost in it, and perhaps to even find an anchor.

Irit Tamari

Night Vision in Room 309 is exhibited up and down the staircase of Assemblage Gallery. It is a story of a dream that got stuck in a hotel room with no possibility to get out. Every guest in that room dreams the dream and departs leaving the dream for the next guest.

When Tamari first visited Assemblage she remembered the story which she once meant to put to writing but never did. The story was never written and might never will be but this powerful memory of it was an opening to a stream of thoughts about the kind of a dream, what would it hold, how would it affect the dreamer and what kind of a room holds such a dream…

In her work process Tamari refers to the site as raw material. She invites the visitor in, to go up and down the staircase, to enter the flashes of dream as if through chapters of the unwritten story that eventually finds itself where it occurs.

The exhibition is positioned in a spacious setting which is different from earlier exhibition settings by the artist. Tamari shines a light onto moments and scenes which have been framed in boxes. She reveals the dream’s story, and tries to catch its defining moment, its turning point.The viewer almost gets “thrown” into a loaded, occasionally troublesome or humoristic moment. Experiencing the dream’s “sensation” of being tuck, only finding release in those who dream it – the visitors. Its location, imagined the same as the dream itself, room 309 spreads across the staircase, finding its essence in all the images combined in it.

At the same time, the positioning of these moments is given to the viewer as a sort of an intermission between them. A threshold of thought, about the moment or alternatively a way out before re-entering. The difficulty of climbing up the stairs softens when faced with the moments at the end of the final set of stairs. When descending, the second gaze is easier, different. Like a stroll within the awakening dream’s state of consciousness. With the memory of the images like previously watched/excperienced scenes ar re-read book chapters. Asuggestion for a Déjà vu.

At the third staircase a mirror is situated, which reflects the viewer in their path, looking at themselves and experiencing a reflection of the “chapters” placed across from them.

In her process of working on the exhibition, Tamari photographed the hotel rooms in their different states, some after guests departures, precleaned and preorganized, and some during cleaning and organizing by the chambermaids, awaiting their next guest.

These photographs are met with further ones from the artist’s archive, images which she took in Israel and abroad that complete the subjects which are revealed from the dream.

Tamari photographs and uses the printed images as material by cutting it up and reconstructing it. The viewer is physically present in the location yet at the same time views its changes, via the treated images of the place and the artistic intervention in it. Collage, papercuts, and folds creating a new image that enables new and different possibilities to it.

Irit Tamari

2021

Night Vision in Room 309

Solo Exhibition

3D Photographic Collage, wooden box frame, 37x37x12 cm

3D Photographic Collage, wooden box frame 37x37x8 cm

3D Photographic Collage, wooden box frame 28x28x5 cm

3D Photographic Collage, wooden box frame 28x28x10 cm

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Stopmotion Video

00:01:22 min.

Curator – Alvit Sharvit

Full Work List

For additional information and pricing, please contact us:
[email protected]

Elinor Milchan

Inspired by Haruki Murakami’s short story “On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning”, Elinor Milchan’s site-specific photographic installation at Assemblage Temporary Project Space engages the passerby to explore this fragile moment of a possible encounter, of blurred lines between dream and reality, between the dreams and the lies we tell ourselves and to others; the discrepancy between what is real and what we project; what we want real and what we try to hide; what we place in front, and what is behind. In an age of social media, social distancing, and social lies, where people place themselves in fake situation, or fake situation that they do so want to believe are real, that they believe these are real, the distance between the different realities and dreams are blurred, divergent, and apart.

Milchan entangles the viewer’s point of view in a room of broken pieces and entangled paths of chance.

The viewer finds himself confronted with the stare of a large scale colored self-portrait photograph printed on a glossy multi panel stainless steel work, with a three dimensional cubist approach. At a specific point, one can compose a portrait hanging between bars, reminiscent of the mikado, a game of hazard and chance, that hold the work together, though it seems about to break into pieces. The installation allows the reflective surface to be seen in parts and the viewer to metaphorically become part of the work, and eventually its main subject matter, as if this story is his own, embracing at once infinitely sub-divisible paths.

The artwork is also affected by the outside world and time of day, as the natural light and all the surrounding and passerby all become part of the composition of the work, constantly affect its composition.

In the age of social media and social distancing, the idea of narcissism and loneliness, the search for connecting and being seen is ever more relevant.

In this endeavor, the artist takes over an intimate space, located in the back garden of Assemblage boutique hotel & cafe, creating her own moment when emotions connect and mend. The isolation within this intimate space, creates a unique opportunity for the viewer to place himself in a contemplative place where inner and outer connect. The scale of the photograph, integrated with elements of chance, with the use of a black bars, referring to the Mikado game, engulfs and suffocates the visitor in the excess of trapped emotions ready to be released. The installation is accompanied by voice over passages from the story in Japanese, English, and Hebrew.

Assemblage Staircase Gallery for Contemporary Art, spreads on several dynamic spaces on the Assemblage premises. A strictly preserved 100 years old eclectic building renovated into a Boutique Hotel, a Café that dims its lights and becomes an intimate Bar in the early evening hours, and a magical Secret Garden with a small Pavilion at its end, allowing the visitor a unique experience, derived by a stream of thought as for an amalgamation of the different roles encompassed for in one place for Hospitality, Art, Culture & Leisure.

The gallery’s name, derived from the main exhibition space has several exhibition spaces within the premises, which change at every exhibition when the main and only, permanent space, is the unique staircase of the preserved building

The Boutique hotel, Café & Bar and Several art exhibition spaces, s to develop a unique experience to its visitors.

Elinor Milchan

2021

One April Morning…

Site Specific Installation

Color Print on Stainless Steel 74×74 cm

Color Print on Stainless Steel 72×233 cm

Stainless Steel mirrored Panel 233×53 cm

Black wooden Poles – Variable sizes

Printed text on PVC panel

Stereo sound

Curator – Alvit Sharvit

Installation and Text

For additional information and pricing, please contact us:
[email protected]

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