Pottery Slam 2

Heat Clay Body: life cycle

Opening: Friday, 3/05/2019, at 10:30

Closing: Saturday, 4/05/2019, at 14:00

Curators: Shira Silverston and Netta Levavi

* Traces of the performances will be on display till Saturday, 11th of May 2019- 14:00

Participants: Shlomit Mendelkern, Brit Einstein, Carmit Hassine, Estefania Valls Urquiio, Rachel Menashe Dor, Tal Dayan, Daniel Gerber, Neta Peretz, Dror Shoval, Tal Frenkel Elroy, Yael Atzmony, Yahel Paizner, Inbar Frim, Daphna Yalon, Shani Reches, Aniya Kirzner, Noa Almagor Ben-Dor, Ronen Yamin, Hila Dror, Amnon Amos, Doron Naama Gelfer, Mika Orstav, Jonathan Nosan

This is the second time we present the Pottery Slam at the Benyamini Center – a program where the gallery becomes a lab to experiment with clay, body, action and words. The Pottery Slam is a multi-disciplinary series of experimental performances that aim to expand the dialogue of ceramics and expose the public to the beauty of the process and the potential of the material.

This year’s Pottery Slam makes the connection between clay and body referring to the various stages and “life cycle” of clay; material, object. Withering as a metaphor for human life, cycles of processes in history – culture, politics, society. There is a strong resemblance between the various stages of clay and human existence as well as between making with clay and the action of the body. Between the maker, the material and the object.  In this event we would like to highlight the unique connection that is usually only visible in the studio: heat, body, material, a triangle that is central to creation. The characteristics of the clay in the various stages, flexible, stable, fragile, dry, wet, liquid, solid, and more – will present themselves to the audience through the performances and artistic acts of the program.

During the events, the gallery and roof of the center will change, and the remains of each performance will be left as evidence of the activity. The process will be videoed and recorded for the visitors to understand the order of events.  

“Traces” of the performances will remain in the gallery until 11/5/19

Details of performances

Sculpt me a pink microphone – Sculpture and wheel-throwing

Friday 3/5/19 at 10:30 – Shlomit Mendelkern

“My words – those that I would like to spread in the world are expressed through clay. Maybe if I say them in pink clay, they will also be pink?”  Making with the inner voice.

Moment – Dynamic installation

Friday – Saturday 3-4/5/19 from 10:30 – Brit Einstein

“The sand from Kibbutz Magen in the Gaza area settlements where I grew up contains the extremes of life and death, agriculture and war. Water dripping into the earth, an agricultural action, leaves a human stamp, a memory in the materials. The dripping water I replaced with a trickle of ink that crumbles the earth and disintegrates.”

Aids for drawing– Performance with audience participation

Friday – Saturday 3 – 4/5/19 from 10:30 – Carmit Hassine

Between curiosity and restraint – handles of crutches used for drawing. The work examines the way in which the participant holds the clay handle. The shape is loaded with a para-medical reference used to aid the body and the participant is requested to use the form.

Our Footprint in the World – Movement  

Friday 3/5/19 at 11:00 – Estefania Valls Uquiio, Guatamala

Who do we follow? Who follows us? Our footprints will stay, our energy will lead, and our body will leave. From the dust we come, to the dust we go. A journey following footprints.

Wedging – Dance and Movement

Friday 3/5/19 at 11:30 – Rachel Menashe Dor, Tal Dayan

A dynamic and responsive dialogue between two artists. Body reacts to clay, clay reacts to body. Passive and active movement, chaos and order, deconstruction and rebuilding, cutting and joining, flinging and lifting, tension and relaxation. Life cycle, as in wedging clay, affects the human internally and externally. Wedging clay is like a warm-up of the body, preparing it for the creative process and this preparation is the work itself.

Tribute to clay – movement

Friday 3/5/19 at 12:00 – Daniel Gerber, Neta Peretz, Dror Shoval

The performance examines the possibility of clay to be the additional participant in conversation between people. The clay will provide the evidence of the conversation, the seal of agreement, memory. A dialogue of gestures engraved in the clay.

How do you do plate? – reading from the book by Yoel Hoffmann ‘How do you do Dolores?’ and wheel throwing

Friday 3/5/19 at 12:30 – Tal Frenkel Alroy, Yael Atzmony

Wheel throwing through words, the dialogue between two women is an opposite creative action, the routine format returns the ceramic language to the fresh clay and the body of primal letters.

Man Earth – Body drawing with audience participation

Friday 3/5/19 at 12:30 – Yahel Peizner

Body and face painting are an ancient art used in significant rituals throughout life cycles. The contact between clay and body is a transformative sensual and visual experience. Covering the outer layer allows the inner spirit to exit the body. The performance will enable the audience to take part in this intimate experience between man and earth in an artistic ceremony.

Eclipse – drawing on the wheel

Friday 3/5/19 at 13:00 – Inbar Frim

Drawings made on the wheel as a body of work that tries to capture with a pencil, a porcelain image that is disintegrating. The drawings document the clay image but also cause the destruction of the object. Between sculpture and drawing, three dimensions to two dimensional.

Bread of the Earth Dream of the Earth – performance with audience participation

Saturday 4/5/19 at 10:30 – Daphna Yalon

Bread as a joint creation of man and earth. The passage between simple daily tasks, rituals, contemplation, wonder, game, discovery and meditative observation.  These are the main elements of the making performance offering the audience the opportunity to participate and be part of the dream and creating with earth.

Body Language – wheel throwing and sculpture

Saturday 4/5/19 at 11:00 – Shani Reches

Deconstruction and reconstruction as a part of the intimate relationship between maker and object is central to the performative act. In the performance the artist refers to the vessel as a body and the human body as a vessel and raises questions about our ability to control the cycle of life.

Take it off and put it on – movement

Saturday 4/5/19 at 11:30 – Anya Kirzner

The remains of the clay that are discarded when working the surface of a ceramic pot move from the sidelines to the center and are transformed from unimportant to the essence. They become the main player at the front of the stage as a tinkling porcelain dress.

Khnum – wheel throwing and sculpture

Saturday 4/5/19 at 12:00 – Noa Almagor Ben-Dor, Ronen Yamin, Hila Dror, Amnon Amos, Doron Naama Gelfer

From dust we came. According to Egyptian mythology the god Khnum made man on the wheel using mud from the Nile. In the performance the wheel throwers whose daily task is to make functional vessels from clay will create a human breathing clay body.

My view – wheel throwing

Saturday 4/5/19 at 13:00 – Mike Orstav

At the heart of the performance is an unusual view of the making process experienced by the artist and the clay together, a photographic angle that exposes intimate moments from inside the clay and vessel.

Erosion – Butoh contortion performance

Saturday 4/5/19 at 13:30 – Jonathan Nosan, USA

How to extract the soul from each vessel by challenging and refining their mutual strengths, fragilities and extremes to reach an ultimate place of peace and stability. “Parts and pieces” playing between light and shadows, breath and self-made instruments, sets an intimate and intense microcosmically topographical stage for Nosan’s erosion: the nature of change, transformation, and unification.

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