David Wakstein
Kunst-Ausstellung[1]
Mixed technique, 2014–2018
Curator: Neta Gal-Azmon
Throughout the many years of his artistic practice and art teaching, Wakstein developed methods of collaborative work that involve elements from the culture of social media, converting these into the language of a rich and layered artistic action. Wakstein approaches collaborative art as a genre, one which allows him to tackle inner-artistic questions regarding processes of artmaking and display. The presentation in the current show was devised as to highlight these questions. Wakstein seeks to retain the raw visibility of the works, the informal aspect of the workshop, studio or storage from which they came. Attention is hence directed at the core of artmaking, the bedrock from which works arise that are replete with tenderness and sensitivity, along with a marked material crudeness which they retain.
Wakstein examines questions that touch on individualism vis-à-vis the community and reference group, suggesting ways in which the artistic output of individuals may converge into a critical mass. It is in such ways that – through interactive intervention and the exchange of knowledge and mental tenets, and unrelated to formal hierarchies – the various creative components come together in Wakstein’s own work, spilling back from his studio to the exhibition space and back to the field of art.
In the course of four weeks, the premise of Wakstein’s show is meant to operate an active place of display, in constant flux. Elements of the display will be forfeited by new ones several times over, each time with works originating from different series of Wakstein’s – among them several which he created in the capacity of artist-teacher, in collaboration with students of his. In addition, Wakstein had invited artists both young and established to participate in films he is currently shooting, where he’ll be interviewing each on site about their work, by way of a simulated studio visit. As a result, Wakstein’s exhibition space is expected to fill up with the “background noises” of multi-participant artmaking – talks, encounters, shooting directions, etc. Combined, all these lend an expression to the collective mode of action, to the fragmentary, mosaic-like quality we associate with Wakstein’s art.
[1] The exhibition, as well as a mosaic piece presented in the show, takes its name from an art exhibition that opened in the foyer of the Vilna Ghetto Theater on 4 April 1942.
