Reuven As Above, So Below Reuven Israel As Above, So Below September 14 - October 28, 2016

2 Tales of Love and Deception by Lilly Wei

Reuven Israel, while regarding his new work, paused for a moment, then said: “What is important—and what I want my to create—is a space for fantasy, for imagination.” Too much of today’s art is literal, he continued. Art and life may be proximate, but they are not the same.

In As Above, So Below, Israel con- tinues to explore abstract form with unabated avidity and sophistication. He is deeply interested in codes of representation without the figure; the elegance of geometry is his preferred language. Each body of work is gener- ated by the one that preceded it, with the addition of something new to the mix. While these changes might seem minor at times (he prefers evolution to upheavals), there is ultimately a nota- ble, even immense difference, some- times surprisingly so in relationship to the matter-of-fact nature of the shifts. For instance, the antecedents to this show consist of stacked pieces, often larger, horizontal in orientation, rest- ing on the floor, or angled against a wall and braced by it. In the present project, the palette and some of the components are similar, still threaded on a thin copper rod, but the has been pared down to three essential designations: base, shaft, and finial, or feet, body, head, reminding us that sculpture, for most of its history, has At First Blush, 2016, Copper coated steel rod and painted MDF, 96 x 13 x 13 inches Green, 2016, Copper coated steel rod and painted MDF, 96 x 21.25 x 21.25 inches Black Out, 2016, Copper coated steel rod and painted MDF, 96 x 14.5 x 14.5 inches 4 been figurative. Furthermore, these and Russian Orthodox cathedrals all nine recent sculptures, emphasizing provide him with visual stimulation. the top and bottom, are freestand- Playing on this tension, Israel infuses ing, underscoring their association the work with the language of science with the body, as does his increasing fiction and its vision of future worlds engagement with the base as he pro- ironically derived, in his eyes, from gressed. Israel constantly adjusts the an aesthetic vocabulary rooted in the ratio between elements, tinkering with past. His references are intentionally placement, always fine-tuning their vi- open-ended and difficult to pin down— sual and psychological impact, the top spaceships, javelins, ski poles, ceram- “launched” by the bottom. The ten- ic vessels, and more come to mind as sion between top and bottom has been viewers contemplate the work. ratcheted up in this series as they con- tend with one another, attracted and Israel’s forms are impeccably crafted. repelled, energized by the confronta- What you might notice first is the ex- tion, pushed apart and pulled together. traordinary refinement of his produc- tion, the surfaces approaching some Israel is greatly drawn to extravagant platonic ideal of what surface and form interpretations of geometric shapes should be. All are made of painted MDF that are capacious enough for fantasy (medium density fibreboard) replicat- to flourish. and Pop, Mod- ing wood, metal, and plastic, demon- ernist design and architecture (with strating the artist’s delight in his vir- its belief in ideal environments that tuosity and in trompe l’oeil; his credo are socially and spiritually affective), is that deception is central to art. In Islamic mosques, Buddhist stupas, this contemporary version of trompe

At First Blush, 2016, Copper coated steel rod and painted MDF, 96 x 13 x 13 inches At First Blush, 2016 (detail)

6 Black Out, 2016, Copper coated steel rod and painted MDF, 96 x 14.5 x 14.5 inches Green, 2016, Copper coated steel rod and painted MDF, 96 x 21.25 x 21.25 inches

8 Black and Blue, 2016 (detail)

l’oeil, what seem to be precise, appreciating its denotation. The work mass-produced objects are illusions. is more accurately described as black In reality, everything (except the cop- and white (a phrase that itself denotes per rods) is painstakingly, delicately clarity and the unequivocal—the latter wrought by hand—cut, laminated, a notion the artist might debate as an sanded, colored with industrial paint impossibility) rather than black and and lacquer, then polished to an im- blue, if considered quantitatively. The maculate finish, aglow with a potent title is inexact, he points out approv- visual allure. ingly. It is also about the “mirroring” of forms, although that mirroring, too, is His titles, prompting discourse, are inexact, and linked to his sense of rup- idiomatic expressions based on col- ture and play. Additionally, its upright or, giving them a new context, their poles, like double antennae, seem to meanings recharged, rebooted. They signal the cosmos. Yellow Belly (2016), stress the role of color in works that meaning coward, a kind of snake, and are as much about as they more, is named for its lemony cup- are about sculpture (similar in cer- like form presented on a two-tiered tain ways to the Californian minimal- base fitted to its diameter, the piece ist John McCracken). Black and Blue culminating in a small, glossy black (2016) usually refers to the bruising cone that suggests a hat or perhaps an- of the skin but Israel, typically, sees it other attempt at cosmic outreach. At another way, as something more de- First Blush (2016) features a plump, scriptive and visual, at the same time beguiling shape that toggles between

Black and Blue, 2016, Copper coated steel rods and painted MDF, 96 x 39.5 x 13.15 inches

10 identities;, perhaps it’s a stupa or, fur- ther afield, something deliciously ed- ible. In Red Neck (2016) and White Collar (2016), two of the newest works, the base has become more ex- pansive. Red Neck’s tilted support—its copper rod at a diagonal—consists of mostly red-toned stripes. It appears to be constructed from separate bands but is not. Israel goes to great lengths to persuade the viewer that it is, es- pecially in his detailing of the edges, which seem slightly misaligned. White Collar’s fan-shaped base also suggests multiple parts like a pieced-together puzzle. However, it is made from just two joined sections and is the most as- sertive in the series; it might be read as an abstract painting or as a black tie on the grey ground of a shirtfront.

Israel is a formalist, but his brand of formalism hovers over specific things in the world without coming to a standstill. Fluidity of meaning is inher- ent to his practice, full of associative riffs and speculations that are serious, strange, humorous, the range of pos- sible readings crucial to its richness, urging viewers to let their responses wander. Labors of lavish, stubborn love, these utopian objects are steeped in contingency and a kind of magical thinking, mischievous talismans for an uneasy era.

White Collar, 2016, Copper coated steel rod and painted MDF, 97.5 x 61 x 61 inches

12 Red Neck, 2016, Copper coated steel rod and painted MDF, 80.5 x 65.75 x 47.25 inches Red Neck, 2016 (detail)

14 As Above, So Below, 2016, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles (installation view)

16 As Above, So Below, 2016, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles (installation view)

18 As Above, So Below, 2016, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles (installation view)

20 As Above, So Below, 2016, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles (installation view)

22 As Above, So Below, 2016, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles (installation view)

24 As Above, So Below, 2016, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles (installation view)

26 Red Head, 2016, Copper coated steel rod and painted MDF, 96 x 9.5 x 9.5 inches Red Head, 2016 (detail)

28 Out of the Blue, 2016, Copper coated steel rod and painted MDF, 97 x 14.5 x 14.5 inches Out of the Blue, 2016 (detail)

30 Yellow Belly, 2016, Copper coated steel rod and painted MDF, 96.5 x 12 x 12 inches

32 RI: It’s true I do work on my sculpture RI: The fact that in many cases my surfaces in a pictorial fashion. Many sculptures are assembled from differ- Excerpts from times even the shapes themselves are ent parts causes a situation, that in a Joshua Neustein Reuven Israel determined by how I wish them to way, I see the piece for the first time In Conversation “take” the coat of paint. In most cases only when I put all the parts together each color is a separate piece that I lat- after painting them. That moment is Paperweight Art Press, 2014 er assemble with other parts to create very strange to me. I have a very strong the final sculptural work. sense of detachment from the thing I was working on for so long. It is new to Joshua Neustein: Maybe we should you marked. How did the stripes meet JN: I have so many questions about me, like a stranger, that I never really start with, what George Kubler called the floor? As for painting vers sculp- the process and the technique. So the saw before that very moment. “the point of entry” both personal and ture - this is still a lingering issue for process is not carving... juxtapositions, artistic. Personally when did we meet? you, and for me as well. Perhaps that is and the construction is not building a JN: How do you make the sculpture Was it at the exhibition “Flat” curat- one the overlaps in our practices. sculpture, but fitting the parts together seamless when you combine the differ- ed by Gilad Meltzer on Salame Street that are prefab. ent parts? in Tel Aviv? I remember encountering RI: It was actually one of my first ex- the floor piece, big alternating black periments with MDF and spray paint- RI: They are fabricated as different RI: Parts do often need to slide one and white stripes, very bold. I liked it ing. Each stripe is a separate board, parts that are fitted together many into the other and fit perfectly, but immediately, it resonated with images it’s a bit like shelves placed on the times during the process before indi- this sounds more complicated than it of the street and the sports field and floor one touching the other. One of vidually painted. After a while I start- actually is. In many ways it is just like to art historical issues. I asked Melt- the questions I was asking myself was ed also doing the opposite; making one building a chest of drawers, that each zer “Who is this artist? I want to meet “what is the minimum height for some- piece look as if it were assembled from drawer needs to fit into a designated him?” thing to turn into a sculpture?” many different parts. So if something space. The sculptures are actually not looks like it’s one piece with a few col- seamless at all, they just appear to be Reuven Israel: Yes that was the first JN: That certainly was what drew me ors then it’s probably made of separate so at first sight. They also sometimes time we met. A few months later I was to your work and I felt a common parts put together and if something appear to be straight or round, plastic in New York and you invited me to visit sensibility. How displacing an object looks like it is made of a lot of differ- or metal and industrially fabricated. you in your studio. About the work you changed its category. Is an object on ent parts it can really be one piece, or mentioned, it was a piece that I did as the wall a painting and on the floor a much less pieces than it seems. JN: I don’t have Texte zur Kunst state- a student in my second year at Bezalel sculpture? This was a rhetorical but ments to hurl your way! But I know Academy that resurfaced in that exhi- fertile question. You and I were like JN: These components preclude any criticality analysis locates itself in a bition. I think that in a way I was trying parenthesis to an era, I the opening hurried decisions on the subject. Like recognizable way. Rather than braid to take abstract painting and put it on parenthesis 40 years ago and you the the editing film rushes to create a nar- self-congratulations. Good analysis the floor. closing parenthesis on that era. We rative. As you spend a lot of time to- creates terminology that is both cu- both crossover from 2D to 3D and gether with the object of your labor rious, specific and contextualizes the JN: I can’t recall if the stripes were vice versa. You work on your surfaces and get to know every angle, the expe- sculpture. Your sculptures are “desiring painted directly on the floor or if they in a pictorial fashion, more than on rience you induce attaches a physical machines” if we are to use a Deleuzian were applied to a material like linoleum, the weight and mass of the sculpture. I identification and distillation, and con- term. And the time you spend on them, which you laid on the floor. There are work more on movement, process and structs disparate facets and a kind of or more precisely with them, generates so many tensions and dependencies evidence of performance and I’m dis- cubism. a delirium which in time becomes au- between the marking and the material missive of my surfaces. tomatism. The experience of making

34 Superpartners, 2011, , Tel Aviv (installation view)

36 your sculpture is what psychiatry calls to a region of objectivity. But I suspect “a fixation”. Along these extensions that the motive force is a labor inten- and projection there is the act of dis- sive repetitive action that is self-hyp- appearance. Your obsessive working on notic. For a dyslexic person this must the image, also disappears you. But we be addictive and magical to work the disappear like Bedouins in order to re- surfaces hours on end. The surfaces are appear again in another place. more an artificial image than a natural image. RI: Yes we both erase ourselves in dif- ferent ways from our work. RI: You mentioned magic, as I see it the word magic can refer to two very dif- JN: In your case the high gloss surface ferent things. The first is shamanistic, insinuates that it should not be touched believing that certain people animals or approached? “Noli me Tangere”. You or objects posses supernatural powers. actually titled one of your earlier sculp- The second is acts of magic which are tures “P.D.T. (Please Don’t Touch)”, so actually elaborated acts of deception here we have the institutional attitude like a magician’s performance. You Babi, 2011, painted MDF, 32 x 23.5 x 14.5 inches toward painting, drawing. But sculp- know that you are being fooled, you ture flirts with tactile senses. just don’t see how. While one hand of touched or poked. This lead to sculp- times, I encourage or provoke that be- the magician is drawing your attention tures that can be turned or have rotat- havior with my sculptural works. RI: I used regular household enamel the other hand is busy doing the trick, ing elements in them, parts that can paints in the beginning; these paints concealed behind his back. be opened and closed and buttons that JN: So you welcome the invasion? To seemed dry, but weren’t really for a long can be pushed. In the case of “Babi” submit to the abuse? Is touch equal time. So often, if people touched them there is an inside revolving panel. to abuse? Is this a reversion to some they left fingerprints embedded into the JN: You did the “Superpartners” show kind of sexual economy? In this case is surface of the paint. This used to freak at the Tel Aviv Museum alongside the JN: So the sculpture responds to the touch an harassment? me out. “P.D.T. (Please Don’t Touch)” is painter Shai Azoulay. One of the piec- touch. It takes on a role of submission. from that period. After a while I start- es you showed was “Babi”. A box-like Does “Babi” have a toy-like quality? RI: Maybe...actually you can never ed working with more industrial and shape that has a movable section. A The title or name of the piece seems predict the way people behave in a sophisticated paints to solve that prob- thick frame or doorway-like part and child-like. If so is there a perversion gallery or a museum. Some respond to lem. About the name, traditionally a an internal rectangular “door” that when an old man plays with toys? I the work with gentle almost sexual ca- name should give some kind of expla- can swivel inside the frame if pushed. myself have been accused of that as ressing, other people tap on them with nation to the work of art, in this case Would you say it is rotating? Revolv- well. their fingers to try and make out by the I liked the fact that the sculpture itself ing? Turning? sound of the tap the material it’s made is very self-absorbed and non-revealing, RI: I think that when a grownup per- of, I even saw people use their legs and and the name instead of explaining just RI: Sculptural works, especially seduc- son encounters an object that can’t be kick them to check if they move. So holds you back. You are also not sure if tive tactile ones, invite, whether I want categorize immediately, s/he goes back you can really never know how and it’s a name or an instruction. it or not, physical inquiry from the in a way to a juvenile or even infantile with how much force people touch and viewer, that often leads to abuse. At state, of physically inquiring what that that’s why I think the word abuse is ap- JN: Your sculptural surfaces give them- one point I had enough of this abused thing can do and from that s/he tries to propriate. selves as a power of semblance. It passes and I wanted the pieces to respond if understand what it is. I think that at

38 The Museum Presents Itself 2, 2015, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (installation view)

40 JN: You missed my meaning. Or per- act of making a mark and its percep- haps I was too vague, or you were tion in the eyes of the marker is im- guessing what I meant without reading mediate. There is a constant relation- the whole sentence. By “sexual econ- ship between the hand that marks, the omy” I was not wondering about the markings, the eye that perceives the viewers/pubic mindset but your own marking and the brain that directs the state of mind. Abuse followed by repet- hand to do the following mark. I can’t itive actions of buffing the surface. observe every action while I’m working on a piece, many of the stages are in RI: Wait, now you just jumped from the the micro without the shape changing. viewer to me. We were discussing the Other stages in the work demand a fast viewer regarding abuse. When I sand, and rapid execution with no room for polish, buff, or whatever I do while cre- introducing changes in the middle, so ating the piece, it is completely differ- if the eye is not pleased with the result ent than someone touching it once it’s I need to go a few steps back and do it finished. I can’t abuse the piece while all over again. So no, I don’t see myself Minimal Standard Model, 2010-11, Painted MDF, 6 x 47.5 x 47.5 inches working on it, there isn’t something au- equal to an innocent person that stum- Collection of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art tonomous enough to abuse. It’s more bles upon the sculptures in a gallery or like playing with yourself. Don’t you museum. RI: The “Long Ears” were the tribe of JN: Franz West was a great artist that separate between your relationship to JN: You seem very committed to your sculptors on Easter Island that were recently died, rather young. I can ap- your work and that of a person that en- practice. Do you feel a kinship to any responsible for the giant heads (Moai). preciate your liking him. He made col- counters it for the first time? other sculptor or painter? From mod- At some point the second tribe on the orful painterly sculptures. ernism or from the Easter Island to- island, the “Short Ears”, wiped them JN: No, I don’t separate between the tems? all out (except for one survivor). They RI: I love many things about Franz other observer and myself. As you said also vandalized and pulled down all of West’s work, the “dumbness” of his yourself while you are working on the RI: I feel that in art there are shifts the statues. There is an amazing book objects, the “usable” sculptures that he piece it has not achieved autonomy. back and forth between emphasizing called “Ako-Ako” by Thor Heyerdahl made, and his relationship through ob- But when it is finished it becomes au- objects to emphasizing images. Into that lead the first archaeological ex- jects to performance. tonomous and then you yourself see this “power struggle” a third player was pedition to Easter Island, I think it’s a it for the first time as an autonomous introduced - emphasizing experience. must read book for sculptors. JN: your aesthetic is physical and vi- sculpture, with no more privilege than After a long period dominated by imag- sual. You don’t seem to me very Israeli. any other viewer. So your distinction is es there is a shift towards objects and JN: What about artists from less re- How do you connect to Israeliness? the relationship to the sculpture before experience. I feel kinship to other art- mote places and that are more invested it is finished and after it is finished. I ists that deal first of all with objects, if in the now? RI: I grew up in (and stayed might even go as far as to say that I am it’s you dealing with paper as an object put there for 26 years). My mother im- an observer while the piece is coming or if it’s a “Long Ear” erecting a Moai RI: To name a few sculptors: Al Taylor, migrated to Israel from South Africa in into its own. on a remote island hundreds of years Richard Artschwager, Martin Puryear, 1960 for Zionist and religious reasons. RI: There is a difference between draw- ago. Franz West, Nahum Tevet, Eitan Ben- My father was a beatnik writer that ing/painting and my method of build- Moshe and the “EIlipsoids and Hyper- grew up in Rhodesia (nowadays Zim- ing objects. In drawing and painting, JN: What is a “Long Ear”? bolos” of Isa Genzken. babwe). He spent most of the sixties the relationship between the physical traveling around Europe and the U.S.

42 writing (as he put it) “notes toward RI: In a way, I guess I do see myself the conventional boundaries or defini- novels”. He got stuck in Israel while coming from a Minimal background, tions.” visiting his aunt in the early seventies that has a strong local Israeli tradi- with no money to continue traveling. I tion. In part because of artists like RI: Yes, I can definitely relate to that, grew up speaking English at home and you that studied or spent some time in who was she really referring too? Hebrew outside. Most of my cultural New York and , then operated references were Anglo-Saxon, I always in Israel.There are also Pop art influ- JN: She was referring to Alberto Gia- felt a certain distance from Israeli cul- ences, mainly in the colors of my work cometti, Eva Hesse, Yayoi Kusama, Lu- ture although I am very much Israeli. and their humor. In a way I am more cas Samaras, Sonnier. She writes: “By influenced by Artschwager than Judd. creating fusion works or working sever- JN: In what way are you “very much A dominant teacher at my time in Be- al genres we have been confronted by Israeli”? What does it mean to be Is- zalel was Jacob Mishori who is a strong domineering pressures and presences raeli? I genuinely ask that, not as a trap advocate of Pop art and the L.A. scene. of pure practices that weigh down, im- or as provocation. pinge, lean heavily on the hybrids...” JN: Your work is located between fluid RI: You asked Nicola Trezzi, your abstraction, potential design, and Pop RI: Hybrids, there’s that word again... friend, what does an Israeli mean to colors, but it interrogates Relational I prefer mongrels. Hybrids are less in- him? I liked his answer. He said that Aesthetics - even if by opposition. How dependent, they have parts that look Israelis are extremely diverse in the do the sacred and the Pop work togeth- like one thing attached to parts that physical look but you can recognize er? Do you flatten out the religious look like another. With mongrels it’s them immediately, without knowing content? Do you make cynical state- all mixed up together to create a new, what is it that makes them look Israeli. ments on religious objects? Yes there is unique thing. He said that the state of Israel, unlike a Pop element but not the classic Pop. any other state, was born out of a con- JN: So, where do you locate yourself: cept and that makes Israelis Israeli by RI: You need to understand that my Altermodern? a portmanteau de ned concept, and that concept is transmit- sculptures aren’t meant to reflect re- by Nicolas Bourriaud, is an attempt ted outward. ligion in a direct manner or to mock at contextualizing art made in today’s faith, I am also neither a Minimal or global context as a reaction against JN: I just came across the Tel Aviv Mu- Pop (or Post/Neo Minimal/Pop) artist standardization and commercialism. seum of Art blurb to your show: “Reu- and I use elements from these and oth- ven Israel’s sculptures seem at first cold, er different sources without seeing my- RI: Jacques Rancière doesn’t see mod- closed and enigmatic, reminiscent of self obliged to be faithful to their entire ernism and postmodernism as two dif- minimalist sculpture, but their seduc- approach. Me, I am a bit like a scaven- ferent movements but rather as two tive radiant color refers to Pop art. His ger, the work - more like mongrels. sides of the same coin, if so then alter- works derive basic forms from holy modernism is still the same cur- rency sites, combined with pseudo-scientific JN: “As painting is to sculpture” in as its predecessors. In a way we are still elements, thus transferring the sculp- the book called “Changing” by Lucy playing in the playground our fathers tures from our charged, conflict-ridden Lippard written about 40 years ago, played in, maybe not enough has really region into a fantastic, magical dream she says: “A Changing Ratio: In this changed, it’s just the same things ex- world”. Do you stand behind these as- time sculpture and making images on tremely accelerated. sociations: Pop, Minimal, Sacerdotal? flat surfaces seem to be cut loose from

44 Formula, 2016, Braverman Gallery, Tel Aviv (installation view)

46 Bigger SBMs, 2016, Seter Square, Tel Aviv (installation view) 48 Reuven Israel As Above, So Below September 14 - October 28, 2016

Reuven Israel Joshua Neustein Lilly Wei

Reuven Israel (b. Jerusalem, Israel) Joshua Neustein (b. Danzig, ) Lilly Wei is an independent curator, lives and works in , New York. lives and works in New York and Tel writer, and critic who lives and works He received his MFA and BFA from Be- Aviv. He received his BA from Pratt in New York. Her area of interest is zalel Academy of Arts and Design in Institute, New York and has taught at global contemporary art and, in par- Jerusalem. He has had solo exhibitions the Bezalel Academy of Arts and De- ticular, emerging art and artists. She at Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Braverman sign in Jerusalem. He is known for writes frequently about international Gallery, Tel-Aviv; Fridman Gallery, conceptual and post-minimal work, exhibitions and biennials. Her work New York; and Museo Civico Floriano and for his explorations in the medi- has appeared in dozens of publica- Bodini, Gemonio, Italy, among oth- um of paper. Neustein’s work has been tions worldwide, and she is a longtime ers. His work has also been included exhibited extensively, including re- contributor to Art in America and a in group exhibitions at Danese Corey, cent solo shows at The , contributing editor at ARTnews. Wei New York; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Jerusalem; , Munich; is the author of numerous catalogues Lesley Heller Workspace, New York; and the Royal Ontario Museum, To- and monographs, and has curated Haifa Museum of Art; Rockefeller Ar- ronto. Neustein represented Israel at exhibitions in the , Eu- chaeological Museum, Jerusalem; and the 1995 , and the art- rope, and Asia. She lectures frequent- Hangar Bicocca, Milan. Reuven has ist’s work has garnered serious critical ly on critical and curatorial practic- received several awards, including consideration in the writings of Arthur es, and holds an MA in art history the Israeli Ministry of Culture’s Young Danto, Robert Pincus-Witten, Gideon from Columbia University, New York. Artist Award, the Tel Aviv Museum of Ofrat, Nicola Trezzi, Louis Kaplan, Art’s Legacy Heritage Fund Prize, and Barry Schwabsky, Irit Rogoff, Raphael the America-Israel Cultural Founda- Rubinstein, and Jeremy Gilbert Rolfe. tion Scholarship. In April 2016 the artist completed a permanent public installation at Setter Square, Tel Aviv.

50 The exhibition and this accompanying catalog would have never come to be with- Photography Credits out the endless devotion and generosity of Shula Nazarian, to whom I owe my Tal Barel: pp. 4-10, 12-13 deepest gratitude. Michael Underwood: pp. 14-16, 18, 20-24, 26 Frank Henne: pp. 29-30 Special thanks to Thomas Rom, the relentless wind behind the sails of this exhi- Yaakov Israel: p. 32 bition. Elad Sarig: pp. 33, 34, 36, 39, 40, 42

I would like to further thank gallery director Seth Curcio and the gallery team, Sarah Flora and Sofija Majstorovic for their hard work and amazing dedication.

Thank you Lilly Wei and Joshua Neustein for your generous contributions to this catalog.

I would also like to thank all the people that supported me and my doings toward this exhibition from far away: Yaffa Braverman, Adi Gura, and Amit Shemma from Braverman Gallery, Tel Aviv; Iliya Fridman from Fridman Gallery, New York; and Netta Segal, Noa Dolberg, and Aluma Israel (who may be too young to understand how much she was there for me).

R.I.

shulamitnazarian.com © 2016 Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner what- soever without the prior written permission of the publisher / copyright holder.

All artworks © Reuven Israel

52