LandEscape Art Review // Special Issue | Page 141

Ehud Schori
Land scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW and fascination one experiences when confronted by destructive natural phenomena . When I first began working on Viral Theories the accumulation of parts reminded me of insect swarms . By coincidence , just after I ’ d finished the piece an actual swarm of honeybees , the size of a basketball , rested in a tree just outside my studio window . I was fascinated by the swarm but also concerned the bees would settle in a place that would cause damage and there was a threat since the bees were situated right over the main walkway to the house . After a few days I called a neighbor who kept bees . She arrived with a kind of bee swat team ( white suits and netted helmets , white van , orchard ladder , and box ) and they rescued the swarm and the hive settled safely . Art can be a fluid medium to elicit memory and emotions unique to each viewer . I like to keep the figuration fluid so that viewers can bring their own memory and emotion to the work , which hopefully taps a universal language of experience .
Viral Theories could be considered as an exploration of the interstitial point between figurative and abstract in constructed space of our mediadriven ange : we appreciated the way your research unveils the flow of information through an effective non linear narrative , establishing direct relations with the viewers : German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that
" nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological , narrative elements within the medium instead ". What is your opinion about it ? And in particular how do you conceive the inner narrative for your works ?
I agree with Thomas Demand that a more immersive and multi-disciplinary form of expression is most effective in order to communicate the complexity of a world that exists increasingly within an intangible , abstract plane . The physicality of my work confronts disconnection between inner narratives and the corporeal . Removed from pedestals , sculpture ( especially installation ) confronts the space of a viewer and co-opts context into the content . However , my pieces are a bit more parasitic of the context rather than site-specific . Rhizomatous connections are fascinating natural systems that are mimicked in our cultural constructs and which allow non-hierarchical flow of information and in this sense I am driven by examining the space between how we physically navigate the world with either the aid or hindrance of rational and cultural constructs or how we make these circuitous connections . For instance , when you walk through the city you carry a map in your mind that imposes order onto your navigation . A natural area may have borders either real or culturally constructed , as in the physicality a river or the property