Chayim Shvarzblat Plays with the Visible and the Invisible

Another exhibition, another challenge to write. ”I thought as I headed toward the Journal Gallery one rainy evening. It is always exciting to see what artists are dealing with, what problems they are opening, what they want to point out to their works and, ultimately, what kind of message they want to convey to the audience with their exhibition, which functions as a medium in contemporary society. Thinking about the future text of the Fog exhibition featuring watercolor artist Chayim Shvarzblat, I decided to use his strategy of highlighting the process of emerging artwork to draw a parallel with the way the text was thought, and use it here as an opening line.

As indicated in the exhibition catalog, the author Chayim Shvarzblat examines the origin of art works found in certain museum collections. However, on this occasion, I will concentrate on the exhibition setup section and the issue of visual cues suggesting an overarching theme of process and research. It is very interesting to study what is inaccessible in most exhibitions and what remains hidden to the audience, that is, everything that entails the process of preparing the exhibition (preparation of the author's concept, production of works, communication with the gallery and curators, elaboration of the bill of costs, text of the exhibition and catalog design and similar to). We are used to visiting exhibitions with rounded narratives that are transparently and clearly arranged in space. This exhibition just rejects this kind of presentation and functions as a somewhat more complicated puzzle for the observer, dragging him into the recently mentioned part of the preparations, behind the main stage. The concept of the author is based on the dialogue from which the installation exhibited in the Journal Gallery emerges.

The name of Chayim Shvarzblat’s exhibition is clear as soon as you enter the space - the haze is materialized in the form of a veil that directs movement in space and at the same time encourages the play of the visible and the invisible, as well as of what is partly hidden, "in the fog". It is particularly interesting that the text of the exhibition is actually a written conversation about particular artifacts, witnesses to the fragments of history found in the museum. So, for example, a photo of a canvas is in this case behind a misty canopy, blurring our eyes, potentially raising the question of the authenticity and credibility of what we see. Another example is the escaping of light from the picture frame with motifs from Chinese tradition and art, which may indicate the elusiveness and fragility of interpretation, especially in the relationship between history and art.