Resting Bitch

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Resting Bitch

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Resting Bitch

Resting Bitch

Sharon Balaban

Curators: Sala-Manca

Mamuta Art and Research Center and Hansen House

15.9–26.11.2022

In this multi-screen video installation, spanning two floors of the galleries of Hansen House and the Mamuta Art and Research Center, Sharon Balaban reexamines the body in relation to its surroundings. The exhibition, composed as a video lexicon, reconstructs the body in the domestic sphere. “I am a domestic flaneur,” Balaban says of herself. Unlike the European male flaneur of Baudelaire and Benjamin, who has the leisure to get lost in the city and to experience it, unrestricted (an image that has influenced perceptions of photography, and art more generally, in the West), Balaban wanders within the private space and meditates upon daily activities that create a spatio-temporal framework that is difficult to escape. The product of this observation is a unique body of works, through which Balaban proposes an unconventional domestic practice – visceral and sensual on the one hand, absurd and full of humor on the other.

In the exhibit, Balaban creates a deceptive viewing experience: the impressive images undermine conventions through the ironic use of both language and materials that are associated with the circumscribed activities of an efficient daily routine. The photographer’s gaze reveals hidden dimensions in these day-to-day materials, while her female body interacts directly with them. Contrary to the modernist attempt to turn the social order on its head, Balaban works within it to create personal rituals of poetic subversiveness and self-irony. The upper space of Hansen House functions as a large-scaled hall of sorts displaying four of the works from the exhibition, while the Mamuta galleries on the lower level constitute a labyrinth-like structure containing eight additional works that create a meeting between the ordinary and the sublime.

Sharon Balaban

Video artist, born 1971. Lives and works in Jerusalem. Senior lecturer at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, where she has served over the past decade as head of Video Studies in the Department of Screen-Based Arts. Her works are shown at galleries and museums in Israel and internationally.

Mamuta Art and Research Center

Exhibition design: Ariel Armoni | Production: Naama Mokady, Mamuta Art and Research Center | Technical direction and exhibition construction: Eitan Haviv | Graphic design: Yoav Perry and Dan Ozeri | Text editing: Inbal Kedar | English translation: Tamar Cohen | Arabic translation: Nagham Abuleil | Video equipment: Doron Projections | Drywall construction: Wael and Nasser Quneibi

 

The exhibition is made possible by the generous support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund, Tzili Charney – ZAZ10TS Gallery New York, Pais Lottery Fund, The Jerusalem Municipality, The Jerusalem Development Authority, The Ministry of Culture, and The Artists’ Fund.

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Exhibition tours

A unique tour in the exhibition Resting Bitch with the artist, Sharon Balaban.

Meeting point: in front of the entrance to Mamuta, at the garden. Estimated tour length: 45 minutes.

Dates and time: Friday 16.09, at 10:00 am | Friday  21.10, at 11:00 am  | Friday  11.11, at 11:00 am  || Free Entrance

Additional events at the exhibition:

11.11, 11:00 Tour and Gallery talk

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7.12, 15:45-20:00

TimeLines: A  video symposium, as part of the closing event

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About Us

The Mamuta Project is a center for artistic creation, encounters, research, and display of art. The Center, is an artist’s run space, developed and directed by the Sala-Manca Group. Mamuta is comprised of artists’ workspaces; video, sound, and electronics labs; a wood, metal, and plastics workshop. The goal of the project is to advance art projects and to create a framework for artists from different media, as well as curators, architects, designers, and researchers, who wish to create in the spirit of cooperation, dialogue, and technological innovation.

Mamuta offers guidance and support for the development of its artists’ individual projects, and initiates and produces projects at the Center as well as at other sites in and outside of Jerusalem—in cooperation with institutions and individuals in Israel and abroad. The project is dedicated to creating conditions for developing an active community of artists, allowing for personal development alongside collaborative work, through an engagement with the place and time.

A project by Sala-Manca Group (through Hearat Shulaym Foundation)

With the generous support of:

Ostrovsky Family Fund, Leichtag Foundation

From 2009 to August 2012 Mamuta project operated at El-Dan House, thanks to the kind support of Daniela Passal z”l, as a joint project by Hearat Shulaym and the Jerusalem Foundation. Since November 2013 Mamuta Center it operates at Hansen House.