Black Sabras - New exhibition shows art and social commitment
Mendes-Flohr’s new exhibition runs until the end of September at the Agripas 12 Gallery near Mahaneh Yehuda.
By PEGGY CIDORBlack Sabras: A work in Rita Mendes-Flohr's new exhibition(photo credit: RITA MENDES-FLOHR)
The purpose was to represent how circumstances can subdue a living thing. Rita Mendes-Flohr, a multidisciplinary artist and member of the Agripas 12 Cooperative Gallery, brought a few cacti (sabras) to the gallery and painted them black.“This was expected to terminate them,” she said with a smile during an interview with In Jerusalem. “But look at them. Not only they didn’t die, they even continued to flower, and every day I can see more of their flowers popping out of the black-dyed cactus. It’s amazing.”Black Sabras – Inner Journeys in a Burning Reality, is the name and the theme of Mendes-Flohr’s new exhibition, running until the end of September at the Agripas 12 Gallery near Mahaneh Yehuda. It is worth noting that the gallery usually shows shared exhibitions of its artist members, but from time to time features a solo exhibition. The works raise questions about art and the social commitment of the artist, explained Mendes-Flohr, an artist and activist in the Ta’ayush organization. On one hand, the black sabras, black-and-white photographs of decaying cacti in extreme close-up, on the brink of abstraction, speak about aging and decay as well as sensuality and eros. However, the show also includes what the artist sees in her social involvement, with a series of photos titled The Jordan Valley, Just Before, depicting Bedouin shepherds who have been driven off their lands by young Jewish settlers.Mendes-Flohr sees in the plants’ refusal to die even after being covered by the paint an echo to the Bedouins’ refusal to be uprooted, as they persevere in going out with their sheep, facing the threat of annexation of their lands.“I have always felt I am not an ‘action person,’” said Mendes-Flohr, “not suited to go out and change the world, despite my strong sense of social justice.”However, as an artist, she kept asking herself about the luxury to engage in questions about aging and decay, and the separation between herself as a woman committed to social justice and an artist who wants nothing more than to spend all her time on a journey into the subconscious. It seems that in this exhibition, Mendes-Flohr has finally succeeded in tying the two together. But then came the next dilemma: capturing the magic of the early-morning light. Wouldn’t making it too aesthetically pleasing beautify them in an oppressive reality?Mendes-Flohr was born on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao, studied in Boston, and today lives in Jerusalem. In the early ’90s, she became a visual artist (painting and drawing) and a co-founder of the former Antea Gallery for Women’s Art, a multicultural feminist art gallery in Jerusalem, serving as its director and principal curator from 1998 to 2010. Today, Mendes-Flohr’s primary medium is photography and the interplay between photography and words.The Agripas 12 Cooperative Gallery is located at 12 Agripas Street in Jerusalem.
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