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Aarale  Ben  Arieh
אהרל'ה בן אריה  

Midsummer Animals exhibition

Muza,  Eretz Israel Museum  Tel Aviv

 

Is there anything more serious than games and play?

Midsummer Animals is an exhibition of monumental wood and metal sculptures measuring 2-10 meters. The sculptures are in the shape of familiar and imaginary animals that invite you to touch them and have fun with them.

The sculptures incorporate an equal part blend of simplicity and sophistication.

Using simple lines I created figures from the animal world characterized as play sculptures made of metal and wood.

The exhibition is like a step back into time and is based on ideas conceived in the 1980s while the artist worked with traditional craftsmen in the Gaza Strip.

The sculptures in the exhibition offer themselves to the public without pretension or ingratiating themselves. The invite contact and play, and believe in the audience’s ability to experience complex feelings the message of which stems from the style, the approach to material, in the technique and structurality.

The play sculptures in the exhibition blur the gap between the concept and the thing itself. They are both the thing and the essence. In order to understand them you need to use them, play with them and experience them. They convey the artistic action as a philosophical act – the act itself rather than the discourse about it.

A look at the exhibition
A look at the exhibition 1
Waves of wood
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