Textilism / Arielle Blonder and Shira Shoval

Small Gallery

Curator: Einav Baranes Eliasov

Opening:  Thursday, 13/1/22 at 19:00

Online gallery talk: Wednesday, 2/3/22 at 19:30- For registration

 Meeting with the artists: Friday 4/3/22 at 11:00 and at 13:00

Closing:  Saturday, 5/3/22 at 14:00

The exhibition Textilism examines material practice using clay in a research process.  Blonder and Shoval, an architect and textile designer, both designers that have cooperated in making and researching materials on the border between science and design. 

The basis of their research is the combination of clay bodies with different shrinkage and with this they create complex, three-dimensional surfaces.

Since Blonder and Shoval are not ceramists, they “have fun” with the material and are satisfied with the so called “incorrect” making process.  This making is fired by curiosity and playfulness using clay and the results are then analyzed using research tools.  In this way they “protest” conventional design and technology controlled by years of knowledge.

Blonder and Shoval (in collaboration with Prof. Eran Sharon, Rakach Institute of Physics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem) exhibited previously at the Benyamini Center a similar research project using latex where they examined controlled and uncontrolled making by hand or by technology in the exhibition Frustrated Materials (curated by Shlomit Bauman).

In this exhibition they work in the ceramic field and let the material create the non-linear deformations, frustrated, or controlled, where they use not only the inherent characteristics such as plasticity, pliability and softness but also the internal geometric structure which serve the questions they raise. 

The exhibition Textilism is the result of an artist residency at the Benyamini Center in the summer of 2021 awarded to them by AIDA.  The residency allowed them to research the ceramic material as a starting point for research in ceramic design.