Playroom | Roy Maayan, Erez Maayan

Curator: Liav Mizrahi

Opening: Thursday, 2/3/23, 19:00

Gallery talk at Benyamini center: Friday, 31.3.2023, 11:00

On-line Gallery talk: Sunday, 23.04.2023, 19:30 For registration

Closing: Saturday, 29/4/23, 14:00

The exhibition “Playroom” of the artists/brothers, Roy Maayan and Erez Maayan, is an invitation to join the game and create a biographical memory, that is mixed with childhood memories of the artists and the memories of the participating public. In children’s rooms in the early 80’s before computer and tv games, one found games that developed a rich imaginary world but also competitiveness that often led to crises in relationships of the participants.  Brothers and sisters and family members played together and improvised the playing space.  The competition as well as the dream family and the shattered dream are part of the baseline for the exhibition “Playroom”.

Five games were selected for the exhibition to include the audience: Four in a row, playing ball, throwing hoops, TAKI cards and ping-pong.  These games are the basis for the allegory of the relationship which the artists raise as feelings in delicate family dynamics.

The exhibition invites action, relationships that are broken and rebuilt.  During the exhibition the public is invited to register to participate in a childhood game which is transformed from the original materiality of the game into a rigid cast material.  The game becomes a fragile object, and the shards will be collected and combined into a new object, an abstract totem that is a metaphor for the dynamics of the participants. 

Roy Maayan (ceramic artist) and Erez Maayan (performance artist) have for many years created an interdisciplinary practice of ceramic performance, as part of a long term research project that bridges high and low, object and action, material and non-material, technical and interpersonal, art and life.  Their joint creativity has been applauded in Israel and abroad, they have presented and won awards in some of the most prestigious art events in the world and their work can be found in museum and private collections as well as the basis for research and writing.