Hava Gal-On | Homage

Exhibition Opening: Tuesday, November 1, 2016 at 8 pm

Gallery talk with  will take place November 11, 2016 at 11 noon

Text: Nirit Hann

Hava Gal-On's solo exhibition, "Homage", could have easily been a 3 decade retrospective of her own excess of creation and art making, hence her decision was to present an homage to prominent contemporary artists of our times. This is a unique characteristic of Gal-On's artistic flair. For nearly a decade, Gal-On owned and managed an art gallery that was known as a haven offering other artists a supportive primary exposition.

Through Hava's many titles - creative artist, art lover, art collector and gallery owner - she "lives" and experiences the wide array and scopes of the art world ; she regularly visits exhibitions in leading museums around the world,  she goes to all the renowned galleries worldwide, she attends numerous openings and takes part in art walks and gallery talks. She shares her accumulated cultural wealth with the community and enriches herself with art courses. This entirety is the secret recipe of Gal-On's infinite inspiration and joy of creation – derived from passion, eagerness and pure love of Art.

A recurring motif in the artwork in the exhibition, which reappears like a magic spell, is the sentence "I want in the Museum". Hava's Homage is dedicated to the artists who gained international recognition, to those masters who managed to reach the peak of their artistic aspirations and display their work in the museum. But Gal-On's repeated reciting also brings about her wondering. She saw tens of thousands of art works, constellations, installations, artistic creations of all sorts, some of which, to  quote her: "were such divine art works that I felt like bowing in awe to them", and on the other hand, there are works that she cannot comprehend why they reached the museum or why they were chosen for display. Are there certain agreed upon criteria that are applied when choosing an artist or artwork for an exhibition? Is it luck, coincidence or a fortuitous moment of epiphany for the artist?

Gal-On started working on the art series five years ago. At the opening of the new wing in Tel Aviv museum she encountered the work of German artist Anselm Kiefer.

"I realized that Kiefer and I deal with relatively close ideas, each of us in his own way. An impressive 7 meter tall painting of a wilted B&W sunflower that he called the Kabbalah Ladder, was displayed in the exhibition. His work had seven sefirot instead of the full ten. He explained that higher than seventh stage is only for angels.

In many of my art works there are motifs and themes from the Kabbalistic and Biblical world, but the personal interpretation that Kiefer added in his work intrigued me. I decided to have some fun with art, and created an homage for this work. My sunflower is colourful and blooming, and it has the full 10 Sefirot ladder, the highest Sfira of angels attributed to museum managers, curators and art collectors.."

"My second homage was to Edvard's Munch painting "The Scream". I have seen the original ones in Norway, and was puzzled as to how 4 repeated pastel on paper drawings were valued at the astronomical price of 120 million dollars each? How did they merit such a price? Evidentially these drawings are a national treasure that is not offered for sale..

I decided to make my own scream – I enlarged the screaming face and in its mouth wrote "I want in the museum!"

After those 2 paintings, Gal-On kept on creating homages to distinguished artists who are displayed in museums around the world. All the paintings have a unified format corresponding to the artist's language, yet made with a personal touch that is typical of her own work style.

Apart from the homage paintings, there are artworks in the exhibition that represent Hava as an artist  and depict her unique artistic style; one of which is "Profile", an implied self-portrait in which Gal-On integrated collage and readymade. Another is the hanging trampolines, an exclusive readymade object in her artwork. 

These artworks provide a preview to Gal-On's inner world, and convey a self- introspection of the things she grew up on, and an external observation of her philosophy and inspirational resources.