Waiting Period - Lesson

Part of The Way of the Land – the kibbutz exhibition at the Givat Haviva Art Gallery

 

Atar Rabina

Erez Harodi

Erez Harodi is hosting 15 yr. old Maya Russo from Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

 

If there is a pair of words that most accurately describes the year and a half since October 7, 2023, it is this: waiting period.

We are waiting for the return of the hostages.

We are waiting for the end of the war.

We are waiting for things to get better, for something to change here, so that we can finally start hoping. We are waiting to start smiling, waiting for the rain that is long delayed.

 

Waiting is an inseparable part of art. It is inherent in the act of photography.

It is the essence of observation.

Waiting is what leads the camera, the direction of the eye and the lens, the decision of whether it is worth 'going for it', more waiting, breathing, choosing the frame, and only then pressing a button.

 

Waiting is an inseparable part of art. It is inherent in the act of painting.

Waiting is what leads the brush. It leads the painter to study the painting anew, to make adjustments, to find the colors and materials and the fabric and the composition.

 

Waiting is evident as a central element in the works and the thoughts behind them, for both Atar Rabina and Erez Harodi.

As a yoga teacher, Rabina testifies that the yoga that she practices and teaches is integrated into her paintings and her choice of materials and images - "As someone who practices and teaches yoga while living with dystonia (a disease she has, which is manifested as a movement disorder), I find that the saying 'Yoga teaches us to heal what can be healed and bear what cannot be healed' expresses a great contribution of yoga, helping the practitioner bear the difficulties of life and find meaning and joy even in situations where full healing is not possible, only waiting for it." This thought also appears in her artistic work.

 

Rabina presents works on plasterboards. The material that is so typically Israeli, temporary and perishable, is picked up from the street and, in her hands, continues to feed the illusion of the stability it provides, the lie that can be safely relied on, the same lie that seems to have been exposed for over a year and we still insist on nurturing it. Through the pictorial layers Rabina reveals to all of us the peeling away from the promise of durability and the recognition that we are all transitory, durable for a moment and broken the next, or, as she describes so well: "A deconstructed body. Being deconstructed, with the potential of decay, it symbolizes temporality and echoes our being mortal, perishable matter, unholy. And full of sand."

 

For Erez Harodi, waiting is part of a personal/national history which he turned into a long-term work, full of achievements and full of action and frenzy.

Harodi, who lost his late father Amnon during the Six Day War, attests to the significance of waiting to his photographic work and the classes he teaches.

 

For several years now, Harodi can be found anywhere there is a protest, wherever something happens. He accompanies the pain, the cry, the men and women who walk in it, the violence, the road, the intersection, the fire and the sign. It seems that with his great talent he has been managing for more than half a decade to be ahead of the demonstration, succeeding in being at the decisive moment, waiting for the subjects of his photography, catching them in the moment when they are defenseless but bursting with their cry. There is a reason why he uses the name “photography lesson” for the series from which the images pasted here as wallpaper on the walls were taken. Harodi teaches us all to wait together with him. Wait for what can't be waited for, wait for what we all wish would happen.

 

For several months Harodi has been working with Maya Russo from Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

Russo lost her father, the late Uri Russo, in the terrorist attack on October 7, 2023 and, together with Harodi, went (and is still going) through a rehabilitation journey with the photographs shown here, which accompany the book that the family published in memory of the father.

 

The works of Rabina, Harodi and Maya Russo shown here force us, the viewers, to wait. To wait and look directly into the complex and challenging reality. Not to judge but to be a part of these works, to participate, to share the moment and the space.

 

 

Atar Geva

January-February 2025