If on a Winter’s Night A Traveler
This small-scale group exhibition borrows its name from the title of Italo Calvino’s novel, published in 1979, towards the end of the Italian author’s life (1923–1985). If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler was written as an act of wandering through reading, during which the author leads us through various tales that remain unfinished, and never become a coherent plot together. It is written in the second person, making us, the readers, not only his companions on the literary journey but actual protagonists of the reading course. Inspired by the novel, the exhibition “If on a winter’s night a traveler” (in Hebrew it's a female traveler) aims to offer the viewer a journey following observation of art.
Henry Taylor, Dakar, Senegal #2, 2019
Acrylic on canvas
Collection of Steeve Nassima
The viewer (that is, you) is invited to wander along, opposite, beside and around 14 works of art created by ten artists: two lived and worked in the 20th century, the others live and work in the early 21st century.
The links between the works will hopefully be revealed along the journey: questions of identity, masculinity (old and new), cruelty (between people and in relation to nature), figuring the human body and the way in which cultures nurture and enrich each other. “If on a winter’s night a traveler” invites you to wander through the gallery and compose your own story of the exhibition from layers of clues, meanings and sub-plots that the works bring forth.
Urs Fischer, How to Tell a Joke, 2007
Polyurethane resin, polymeric plaster, steel, pigments, acrylic paint, matte varnish and dust
Private collection
Photo: Elad Sarig