Culture
exhibition - Sari Paran At the Periscope Gallery
"Where We Come From, What We Are, Where We Are Going (A Painting by Gauguin)"
Curator: Sari Paran At the Periscope Gallery, 176 Ben Yehuda Street, Tel Aviv
The exhibition
invites an intergenerational meeting between Judith Ulman, the artist,
and her two grandchildren, Gal Ulman and Yuval Beery, both
fashion designers. Through clothing, they provoke thoughts about the recent
universal and local period, during which they experienced the COVID-19 pandemic
and a bloody local war.
In their attempt to establish order within chaos, they search for an
alternative to the turbulent reality, finding comfort in a form of
escape—escapism—that leads to introspection or a return to romantic, artistic
sources in the modern era.
Yuval reveals through
her clean, white designs her passion for a new beginning that characterizes an
uplift from a dark period. She explores the color white, which in Western
culture symbolizes purity, innocence, serenity, primacy, freshness, renewal, and
celebration.
The wearer of white exudes spiritual authority, modesty, and calm. In her cuts,
she focuses on basic shapes, such as the tailored white shirt, and minimalist
fabrics, creating a collection that seeks to reset fashion and return it to its
foundational elements, symbolizing a blank new page.
The artistic
inspiration for her work is drawn from the suprematist art movement, with the
central figure being Russian artist Kazimir Malevich.
Malevich spoke in his
works of white on white, where colors underwent a long process until they
finally reached the limits of possibility.
The formal and color reduction expresses infinity for him, and the squares
appearing in his works express the zero of form, transmitting the emotion of
pure, metaphysical art.
In this way, Malevich led art to spiritual abstraction.
Gal Ulman also
chooses a single color for expression in his designs—black.
Black represents in Western culture contraction and absorption, as it absorbs
everything into itself. However, in contrast to the passive and serene white,
black symbolizes protest and strength, and in festive instances, mystery,
formality, elegance, and refined restraint.
Like Yuval, Gal seeks to return to the basics as a reflection of both inner and
outer reality.
He, too, does not accept the emptiness, despair, and chaos, and strives to
create a new, fresh world.
The color black also symbolizes the primordial chaos from which the world was
created, and as such, allows for the creation of a better world.
Judith Ulman also escapes reality, turning for inspiration to the expressionist and surrealist movements of early 20th-century art.
She is particularly drawn to the French Fauvist movement, which allowed
colorful imagination to run wild on canvases full of linear and patch-like
compositions applied in a spontaneous and expressive manner.
Surrealism allowed a glimpse into the unconscious, freed from the limitations
of logic and rationality.
The dialogue between fashion and art as a source of inspiration has existed for a long time. Artists have collaborated with fashion designers and vice versa. At the 1996 Florence Fashion Biennale, one can observe such collaborations between Roy Lichtenstein and Versace, as well as between Mondrian and Yves Saint Laurent.
Cinema professionals also collaborated with fashion designers, such as Jean
Paul Gaultier for Almodovar's film.
Artistic imagery captivates fashion designers, and the relationship between them is growing increasingly close.
Judith, Yuval, and Gal engage in a fascinating visual meeting through clothing
design, artistically and poetically revealing the unknown, Freudian dimensions
hidden deep within the universe.
Exhibition visiting
hours: Monday-Thursday: 17:00-20:00, Friday-Saturday: 11:00-13:00
Exhibition closing
22.3.2025
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