Four artists living in Israel embark on a dialogue with Japanese culture - using packing cases as a medium - through personal stories immersed in memories. Japan-born Kazuo Ishii and Eliya Tsuchida create modern interpretations of traditional calligraphy combined with Manga drawing. Kazuo leaves the paper medium for the packing case, which he uses as a writing platform. On one side, he cites the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu’s observations on the art of war as a way of disguised conduct between near and far; on the other side, he «corresponds» with an installation by Ayelet Zohar, an Israeli artist and researcher of Japanese culture, which deals with deception and trickery as a strategy to gain advantage over the enemy.
In Ayelet’s “Obi” and “The Masqueraders” series, she discusses camouflage in military and daily life in tapestry collage. Tsuchida illustrates a Biblical text for Japanese Manga in the digital world, and interlaces its past with Israeli existence. Eric Eliahou Barkobza, an Israeli artist, utilizes boys’ games to relate Japanese culture to Israeli culture and to present a kaleidoscopic perspective which integrates nontraditional alternatives of representation.
The intended ridicule that mediates between visibility and invisibility, between what lies on the surface and what is underneath it, between near and far- all mark a territory of illusion for these artists in the exhibition.
In a journey over 9004 km between Israel and Japan, the viewer is exposed to a variety of perspectives in which everyone could find their anima– soul. Popular and high imagery play hide and seek in this collaged scenery, and constitute an inter-cultural leap and a transition, generating new contexts of visual and written language in Hebrew and Japanese.
