In Daylight
Leah Abir
RawArt Gallery
March 10 - April 23, 2016
In her new solo exhibition, Yaara Zach continues to develop the sculptural environments characterizing her work. Her sculpture is based on readymade objects and industrial materials that go through processes of de- and re-assembly, as a result of which they are stripped from their original contexts and charged with new qualities and meanings. This is Zach's second solo exhibition at RawArt Gallery.
Red and yellow unpicked punching bags are spread out on the gallery floor, becoming Dancers endowed with metal chains. Alongside them are carpets made out of dark fake-leather belts that are woven in warp and weft. In this exhibition, Zach radicalized the relationship between beauty and violence found in the works, the sexual and gender meanings they hold, as well as the relations they form with the spectator's body. As the exhibition title implies, Zach converts the gallery into a boxing arena, or a crime scene, where things happen in broad daylight, above the surface. One cannot easily differentiate form from content when observing these works.
Despite the strong presence of formal elements such as repetition and craft, interpretations that categorize the works as manifesting aesthetics of casualness or endlessness soon turn out to be insufficient. Instead of easily falling into these categories, or into any type of visual or conceptual pleasure, Zach's works insist on bringing forth the meanings and ramifications of witnessing concrete and palpable fallen material.
Born in 1984, Yaara Zach lives and works in Tel Aviv. She is a BFA and MFA graduate of Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Zach's works have been displayed in various solo and group exhibitions in venues such as the Tel Aviv Museum, the Ashdod Museum of Art, the Bezalel MFA Gallery in Tel Aviv, the Haifa Museum of Art, WIZO Haifa gallery, Basis art school gallery, the Bialik House, and Shenkar gallery.
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