Building and Rebuilding

Asylum Arts presents “Building and Rebuilding” with Repair the World in Brooklyn, NY. Curated by Shlomit Dror, this exhibition features work from Asylum alumni Noa Charuvi and Naomi Safran-Hon, as well as works by the artists Esperanza Mayobre, Kristyna and Marek Milde, and Ivan Stojakovic. Asylum is excited about the collaboration with Repair the World to help bring to light these issues of social justice. Shifts in which many neighborhoods in Brooklyn (and elsewhere) encounter are primary themes within the artists’ works.

Following its opening on November 30, the exhibition will be continuing through January 14, 2018.

Building and Rebuilding addresses the effects of the rapidly-changing landscape in our urban surroundings as a result of sprawl, evident by endless demolitions, empty lots and new high-rises. The works in the show contain familiar elements from city landscapes, such as scaffolding, urban detritus, abandoned buildings, and public gardens, all addressing the hurried transformation of cityscapes closely related with gentrification. The social and architectural

shifts in which many neighborhoods in Brooklyn (and elsewhere) encounter are primary themes within the artists’ works.

Exploring the process and the craft of building, the artist Noa Charuvi depicts various construction zones she encountered around New York. In her series “Construction Workers,” Charuvi examines and conveys the notion of labor by focusing primarily on the builders themselves, rather than the buildings. In a different body of work, “Assembly,” 2015 and “Blue Hose And Rebars,” 2015, she solely portrays building materials and equipment as though attributing human qualities to these inanimate objects. Portraying the metal beams, steel frames, and scaffolding that have hijacked the city’s horizon—sights we encounter daily— raise the question of what existed in these places previously and who will be living there now?

Assembly, 2016
Noa Charuvi pictured with Assembly, 2016
Destruction is a subject matter present in Naomi Safran-Hon’s work, which she conveys by depicting collapsing fragments in her drawings. In these works, which have the ghost images of the paintings they accompany, the artist expresses a state of abandonment and chaos, suggesting notions of displacement. The textures in her paintings are vivid and tactile, intensifying the idea of place (or the lack of it), while the mirroring drawings further emphasize the loss of its identity. Surrounded with the reality of gentrification almost everywhere, Safran-Hon’s work recalls the way low-income neighborhoods are essentially erased due to new developments, pricing out longtime residents.

Text by Curator Shlomit Dror

NEGATIVE - WS: Room with Two Doors and a Mattress, 2017
Naomi Safran-Hon pictured with NEGATIVE – WS: Room with Two Doors and a Mattress, 2017
Shlomit_Rebecca_Sarah
Shlomit Dror (left), Rebecca Guber (middle), Sarah Mostov (right)
Top Photo Credit: Noa Charuvi, Detail of The Window, 2016, oil and acrylic on canvas, 12×12 inches

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