Factory City

Dates: July 2021

Curator: Hila Cohen Schneiderman

About the Exhibition

“City Factory” by the artist Itamar Shimshony is a project designed to repurpose unwanted toys and other artifacts and award them a new monetary value by transforming them into contemporary works of art.

The exhibition will be held at the urban studio of “Rybak House” in Bat Yam, the home of the Educational Department of MoBY: Museums

of Bat Yam. In the months preceding the performance, toys and artifacts were collected, sorted, classified, and cataloged at the factory. This pooled action is carried out by and with the assistance of the Ramat Yosef neighborhood residents where the Museum is located.

The collected items serve as the factory’s raw materials, which in turn will be transformed into sculptures and new works of art.

The factory’s staff comprises an industrial designer, a carpenter, a seamstress, and a group of students and retired citizens who will be performing welding and painting tasks.

This communal factory will operate for eight daily hours over a ten-day duration span and will be open for visitors on a guided tour basis.

“Ready Made” workshops will be held for the benefit of the city’s residents, as well as various art activities for families, local schools, and visiting audiences.

Alongside the factory’s activities, these new artworks will be sold at affordable prices.

Itamar Shimshony is a multidisciplinary artist working in varied techniques in mediums such as painting, video art and performance art, with an emphasis on sculpting.

Shimshony composes diversified original artworks and alters made objects employing artistic disruption. These methods serve as a safe harbor to which he anchors his creation process time after time. Shimshony’s work attempts to remove the art from the pedestal on which it rests, and make the viewer examine the various ways in which art can integrate into everyday life in perfect harmony.

Many thanks to Ealan and Malinda Wingate.