
What Has Been and What Will Become | Tsibi Geva
15.10.24-25.1.25
What is the White City? 009
Opening: 15.10.2024 Tuesday at 20:00
Curator: Arch. Sabrina Cegla
In the ninth Project Room exhibition, artist Tsibi Geva revisits his rejected proposal for the Israeli Pavilion at the 2003 Venice Biennale. Designed in 1952 by architect Ze’ev Rechter, the modernist pavilion was rumored (but never executed) to be demolished before being reconstructed to meet contemporary exhibiting requirements.
2003 was a turbulent year, marked by suicide bombings in Israel, Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks, the Second Gulf War, and international denunciations of Israel. Considering these events, Geva saw no point in displaying artworks within the pavilion. His proposal was a self-inflicted “terrorist attack” that would destroy the pavilion.
By laying bare the pavilion’s ruins, Geva's performative act wished to emphasize the mechanism of destruction and construction as a fundamental aspect of Israeli – and perhaps even Jewish – identity: from the Biblical flood and the Tower of Babylon to the ruins of war, as an act of reset representing a desire for healing.
Turning a critical gaze toward the “home” (in this case, the Israeli National Pavilion) in ruins reveals the violence of the moment and asks, in hindsight, if the moment has passed. A pile of rubble, as an expression of an almost suicidal, self-harming act, invites self-reflection through the open wound. It holds “the self and the Other in an irrevocable bind.” It seeks to cancel the dichotomy of the conflict – Palestinians and Israelis as good and bad – and presents a human condition, a single psychological and conceptual mental environment in which all parties are victims of a tragic story.
The Israeli pavilion in Venice, itself a metaphor for the Zionist ethos associated with modernist architecture symbolizing the establishment of the state, becomes, with its imagined destruction, a symbol of Israeli identity as it falls apart, becomes blurred and seeks form.
The decision to present Geva’s proposal from 20 years ago, in which the building’s ruins are objects on display, echoes everyday Israeli reality: the historical cycle of destruction and erasure of urban spaces, communities and life in the current war. Indirectly, it also reflects the ongoing cycle of demolition, erasure and reset associated with the Israeli construction project and Tel Aviv-Yafo’s project of conservation and renewal.
Geva’s proposal appears even more relevant in these times of civil and political struggle over the country’s identity and future. The current crisis and ensuing imagined reset – utopian or dystopian – must be rethought. What will come next? What vision can arise from these ruins?
Curator: Arch. Sabrina Cegla
Assistant curator: Michal Lichtenstein, Noa Helene Omri
Tsibi Geva studio managers: Talya Shalit, Avital Inbar
Mounting: Carmel Ben-Or, Liav Levy
Video: Danielle Liberman
Text editing: Zipa Kempinsky
English translation: Sivan Raveh
Graphic design: Ran Malul
Tsibi Geva is one of Israel's most prominent artists. His works deal with Israeli-Palestinian existence, local identity and the cultural, political and personal meaning of symbols and fundamental terms in Israeli society - the conflict, wars and everyday life. Born in 1951 in Kibbutz Ein Shemer, he lives and works in Tel Aviv and New York. Since 1979, Geva has exhibited extensively in leading cultural institutions worldwide, Including the Israeli Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). His works are in major public and private collections. He is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the Sandberg Prize from The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the Mendel and Eva Pundik Foundation Prize from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Israeli Ministry of Culture. Geva is a professor at the School of Visual Arts, MFA program, NY; the University of Haifa; and Hamidrasha School of Art, Beit Berl College, Israel.
The Project Room
The exhibition What Has Been and What Will Become is the ninth showing in the Liebling Haus Project Room. The space encourages creatives of all disciplines to take an active role in a critical investigation of the question, "What is the White City?" as part of alternative, collaborative and ongoing research that approaches the White City as a platform for contemporary discourse on conservation, urbanism, identity and culture in the city. The Project Room is the open end of the permanent exhibition in the Liebling Haus, telling the tale of the White City as a point of departure for a story in the making. It is an opportunity to invite the creative community to address current challenges the city is facing on a local and global scale and present different perspectives and alternative narratives.