Idiolect

Dates: 12.11.2009 — 13.02.2010

Artists: Nelly Agassi, Eitan Buganim, Jan Tichy, Barak Ravitz, Hillel Roman

Curators: Leah Abir and Orit Bulgaru

About the Exhibition

Idiolect unites five solo exhibitions of five different artists, each presenting new works in different media. The idiolect format came together as a site-specific curatorial tribute to the unique conditions for the presentation of solo shows created by the museum’s circular and open space. The viewing process enabled by the space is at once divided and united, numerous and singular, while bringing to the surface the tension between the two. In light of these principles, Idiolect offers an encounter with the unique and complex language of each artist and at the same time explores the associations that arise between the different bodies of work.

The concept of an “idiolect,” meaning an individual language, suggests the simultaneity of the general and the individual. The uniqueness of an idiolect derives solely from the repetitions and sequences that comprise it. In the history of art, this concept often exists as a value or benchmark – a point to which the artist is meant to strive, signifying a certain ethos or ideal of maturity has to do with the development of a unique and identifiable lexicon of forms. The Hebrew title of the exhibition, “units” (yehidot), also entails uniqueness along with repetition and continuity. A unit is by definition part of a whole, while a given continuum exists only out of the units that make it up. The very fact of proximity and context, which are the foundation of any exhibition, allow us to identify and contemplate the specific gravity of each body of work. Idiolect assumes that individual language is inherent in the artistic process; it is a prerequisite, yet it emerges and awakens from the general, context. Individual language, in that sense, is in fact a common principle – an ongoing, dynamic, unceasing, and often surprising process.