Tsibi Geva & Farid Abu Shaka: The Good Citizen

What and who is ‘a good citizen’ in 2019 Israel? How might an artist negotiate his art practice and his citizenship?  How might art be both excellent formally while insistently and subtly addressing issues of social and political injustice?

From the tiles ‘balatas’ and the thorns, between Abu Shakra's street cat and Geva’s planted birds, between the ego, social awareness and an artistic interior, these two artists have been creating over a number of decades, a substantial body of work, exploring wide-ranging media;  an ever growing and evolving visual weave in our public sphere. This exhibition, attempts to showcase a section of this stunning visual weave, presenting these two giants together for the first time in a duo exhibition, as a kaleidoscopic experience that invites a new look at the work of each, interwoven with the other’s in poetic dialogue. 

On a bed of gathered ground and charcoal, employing the immediacy of ready-made, layers of paint hidden and revealed, sewing language and video art that is poetry—this exhibition celebrates the beauty and complexity in the coming together of two interdisciplinary artists, guiding and directing us with bright spotlights through their life and work.

Born and having grown less than half an hour away from each other, these artists have been ripening, in a reality and a country which is actually, at least two. 

Both are planted in the local natural and social vernacular; its fertility and barrenness. 

Indeed, place, is a major theme in both their oeuvre. Place as nature, social space, home, histories, philosophical ideas and as a formalist /conceptual creative endeavor.   

Tsibi and Farid studied at some of the best art schools in Israel and abroad and have been presented in dozens of exhibitions in important museums and galleries locally and globally. Both are present in important collections. 

Both have also been interested in exploring the ‘other’ in their larger society.  

Exploring in the hopes of weaving a life together, a shared visual vocabulary

Creating visual stories, our stories, through deep artistic and cultural research, whilst the local politics are smack there in the middle, like a messy puddle or better yet, a separation wall. And they, indeed, get messy, climb up the wall, look out and reach out, minds hearts and criticism included, way deeply, beyond, into (perhaps) an optimistic future.

In the areas of focus and in the shadowy twilight, that which is concrete and present as well as that which is the subtext and subconsciousness of our existence - these two are immense creatives in everything they are. Each born on the other side of an often hidden yet strongly felt, sociopolitical fence, and each chooses a bird’s eye perspective if you will, in which he sees ‘the picture’ in its entirety. 

On the ground, in their studios, each works slowly, systematically and relentlessly, like an ant, one artwork or project at a time, engaging, communicating investigating and collaborating; mixing and changing the / our visual reality.  Abstractly or figuratively and somewhere in the middle, in dialogue and discourse, East and West, the Jew and the Arab--Abu Shakra and Tsibi Geva investigate that which is present now, locally, in the lofty and the mundane, and in the inching closer together, of us all. 

It is no wonder, then, that Farid Abu Shakra and Tsibi Geva have succeeded in deeply influencing the fields of art and culture, and ultimately, our ever-widening shared society.

Mayrav Fisher & Anat Lidror, curators.