אבי שפרבר - Avi Sperber

The subject of longing for the country’s landscapes from the artist’s personal and concerned point of view, in combination with prophetic fears for the meaning of social/national survival– make up the charged symbolism of the exhibition at the Constant Sculpture Gallery. If one can state a question related to the existence of art, including political art, and if one can affect the audience and his/her opinion with respect to social and political views – then this is the exhibition that can provide suitable answers to this question. Avi Sperber’s exhibition deals with topics connected to homeland, but its meaning is relevant to each and every visitor to the exhibition, citizens who live here from each moment to moment.
Ina Aruetty, the exhibition’s curator, wrote in the text accompanying the exhibition that “one enters the gallery while observing details of landscapes that are taken from ideologies of a lost homeland”. So is defined a tragic situation that places the viewer straight into the exhibition’s ambience. The exhibition “reaffirms the viewer’s passion to preserve and understand nature in an age of computerization and urban industrialization. This implication is tangible and threatens to commercialize the land and destroy every part of the homeland”
A sculpture of a split pomegranate made in stone is seemingly thrown on the gallery’s floor; a bunch of grapes rest on a sooty log and its black seeds scattered everywhere; a stalk of wheat is bent towards shards of basalt taken from the mountain. The bent wheat resembles a group of wandering and abandoned characters or sheaves of tombstones that symbolize an apocalyptic future. The stalks create a massive, fearful presence and increase even more the absurdity in the destruction of the landscape. On the wall of the gallery hangs a large colorful photograph of the landscape, which prophesies and exacerbates the feelings of possible loss. “Seed of the Land” is an exhibition about love for the country and caring about its existence, an exhibition with severe judgmental aspects aimed at helping to correct the situation and lead to a better future.