Gabriel Klasmer :
The Air Show

The title of Gabriel Klasmer's exhibition, "The Air Show", refers to the French annual aircraft fair dating back to the early twentieth century. At the center of the first fair at the Grand Palais (1908) was an inflated, festive airship, filled with gas. The aerial works Klasmer has been creating over the past decade are made of readily available wrapping materials, such as aluminum foil and plastic bags. The air is what gives them shape and volume and readies them for display.

At the center of the current exhibition is a monumental work that was first exhibited at the Ramat Hasharon Art Gallery, about a year ago (curator: Ravit Harari). It is one of Klasmer’s inflatable sculptures-installations, which now takes on new place and context. At the entrance to Klasmer's large "bubble," which knocks against the walls of the gallery, an endless golden tunnel is revealed: a dazzling, enveloping vision made of gold-hued foil.

Anyone who observes this "bubble" from the outside while others enter it will notice the undulating movements that the air produces as the foreign body enters, which resemble the movements of swallowing and digesting. Through a manual process and materials from the margins of sculpture’s "materials chart," the artist creates works full of flexibility and movement, the biomorphism of which evokes humor and empathy. 

The image/space of these works can also be located in the optics and aesthetics of Klasmer's painted cycles, some of which are also displayed in this exhibition. They are present as flat, dynamic geometric elements, but also as open pupils and as spaces with depth and volume. In some of them, one can detect the desert-like quality of infinite expanses and celestial bodies.

Gabriel Klasmer (b. 1950, lives and works in London and Jerusalem) is one of the leading artists in the Israeli art scene. He started in the 1970s, after completing his bachelor's degree in art at Bezalel. Later, he moved to London, where he earned an MFA and a PhD in art from the RCA (Royal College of Art). Between 2014 and 2018 he served as Dean of the Beit Berl College of Art. His works have been exhibited in many art institutions in Israel and abroad, including the San Paolo Biennale, Brazil, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Serpentine Gallery in London, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, and Givon Gallery in Tel Aviv. Klasmer has won many awards, including the Sandberg Prize from the Israel Museum, the Pundik Prize from the Tel Aviv Museum, and the Mordechai and Shoshana Ish Shalom Prize from the Jerusalem Artists' House.

ACAC, Arad