Merav Kamel and Halil Balabin
Israel
May 2-31, 2022
Curated by Tami Katz- Freiman
BIO
Merav Kamel (born in 1988, Israel) and Halil Balabin(born in 1987, Israel )lives and works in Tel Aviv. Both of them received their BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem (Kamel in 2012, Balabin on 2014). Their works has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions including: Buchum Museum, Germany; Brno house of art, Czech; Pram Gallery, Prague;PM gallery, Dusseldorf; Circle 1 Gallery, Berlin; Untitled art fair, Miami; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Tel Aviv Museum; Bat Yam Museum; Dada Museum, Ein Hod; Herzliya Museum; Artport Gallery; Ha’Kibbutz Gallery, Tel Aviv; Givon Gallery, Tel Aviv; Basis Gallery, Herzliya; Inga Gallery, Tel aviv; among many other venues. Their works are included in a number of public and private collection such as the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Philara collection; Carry and Dan Bronner collection; Discount Bank collection; Roni and Allen Baharaff collection; Shoken collection; Ann and Ari Rosenblatt collection; Dubi Shiff collection and other private ones. Both was awarded from Beatrice S. Kolliner Award for a Young Israeli Artist, Israel Museum, Israel Ministry of Culture, Young Artist Award (Kamel in 2018, Balabin on 2016); Artis Grant for Exceptional Work in Uncertain Times ; "Elhanani" Prize from Bezalel Academy of Art ; America- Israel cultural Foundation award for extra ordinary artistic achievement.
ARTIST STATEMENT
We are an artist duo, working together since 2012. Our works are divided into two types of practices — the first is sewing of dolls, and the other is site-specific installations.
Our installations deal with documentary and autobiographical content, through which we examine new possibilities of documentary representation. For example, how can the documentary film genre shed its cinematic identity, and how a human story can be told by using traditional artistic tools, without the use of a video camera.
We begin working on these projects with research that involves recorded field interviews. This way, we are able to produce contact and dialogue with others, while examining subjects related to the realities and conflicts of our personal lives.
The representation of these stories engendered a hybrid between fiction and non-fiction, a thin line is drawn between the way of the story was told to us and the fantastical realm of our own interpretation and research of the story that occurs inside and outside the studio. We invite the viewer to step inside the evidence or shell of someone else's story, to penetrate the story like a foreign object.
In contrast, our work with dolls brings out an associative way of thought — the attachment of different organs born of amputations, hybridizations and compositions that create a new object. They are mutations of lust and fantasy with a humorous tone, which mix together an array of familiar images: Cartoons, surrealism, poeticism, a mélange of the high and low, art history, and the conflicted and bizarre space of Israel.
Our joined work allows us to move freely and make connections we would not have thought of on our own. It allows us to give up the elements identified with each of us, to transform ourselves through art, through resistance to habits and perceptions developed in solitary work. In addition, it cancels the masculine-feminine dichotomy of our works, and allows a fluid gender identity. There are moments in our joined work in which we each manage to leave our own egos aside, give up on the individual narrative, and listen to the ego of the work itself. Then an ever-changing, androgynous being is formed, with the ability to play more than one character.
ARTIST LINKS
Website: www.halilandmerav.weebly.com
Instagram: @merav_and_halil