FAREWELL
LETTER
Farewell Letter | Itamar Mizrahi | Solo Exhibition
Curator | Marina Pozner
12 days, 12 hours a day, 12 works
In the home of Grandmother Varda Harmati, of blessed memory
As it remained standing since October 6
In his first plastic arts exhibition, Itamar Mizrahi (25) presents a body of work created in memory of his grandmother Varda Harmati, of blessed memory, who lived in kibbutz Re’im and was murdered there on October 7. In this exhibition, Mizrahi, who was also born in Kibbutz Re’im, brings his distinguishing mark - the unique combination of contemporary aesthetics impacted by the raw desert landscape with rich experience in the fashion and textile world for dance and stage.
The artworks were created in Grandmother Varda’s home, as it remained standing since October 6. Over the course of 12 intensive days, the creative process involved a unique art creation ritual accompanied by certain rules, among them choosing the changing music and Medicina - echoing Mizrahi’s experiences in the PachaMama Tribe. These conditions and limitations were in fact a window to releasing the trauma.
In the transition from the perception of the body as an object to be dressed to its conception as an active instrument for creating art, and on the backdrop of shamanic meditation, Mizrahi creates art using sheets left folded in grandmother Varda’s cabinet or on canvases sized for his body (180 cm and above) - he dances with the fabric, dips his body in color and leaves his imprint in dance positions with the gentleness of a Zen ritual. Each artwork received its name on the same day, out of an intuitive connection to the process and as an integral part of the daily ritual.
session 2 medicina
session 3 medicina
session 11 no medicina
session 2 medicina
The exhibition opens with ׳The Big Bang׳ - a collective work of art expressing an emotional eruption and created by a circle of people close to the artist - part of a spiritual creative session after which Mizrahi embarked on ״giving form to the farewell letter״, culminating in this exhibition.
The diptych ׳Michael and Gabriel׳ constitutes the spiritual climax of the exhibition. Like the nymphs born of the sea foam, they were created, on the fourth day, from the touch of the artist’s painted body with the fabric, manifested differently in each of the works. Inspired by both Jewish tradition and psychoanalysis, the angels are archetypal figures, representing an internal dialogue between Michael - the artist himself dealing with the loss through dedication to meditation by way of creation as an act of change, and Grandmother Varda – angel Gabriel, who watches over, continues to light his way, and comes to be an eternal muse in his artistic narrative.
Itamar documented the behind-the-scenes on each of the 12 days - photographed, recorded and filmed.
Thus, analogously, the gallery bathrooms also become an exhibition space, offering an intimate glimpse into a private ritual and a creative process.
The artworks were created using the painting tools and colors in his grandmother’s studio on the day she was murdered, as an experience embodied in body and matter. The myriad colors in the artworks, in contrast to the black and white colors characteristic of Mizrahi, are a tribute to the artwork of Grandmother Varda, Varda Harmati, and her works in acrylic, water, pencil and coal that she would draw as a daily practice are also displayed in the exhibition.
This reality engenders the need to rethink paths and to choose. Choose to live and choose how to live.
To ask questions on the one hand, and to give thanks for what is on the other.
"Farewell Letter" marks a moment in Mizrahi’s artistic work, a journey of renewal and transformation that draws from and echoes ancient traditions of purification and transition rituals. Creating a continuous dialogue between loss and renewal it enables him to begin a new chapter in a place filled with memories.
The exhibition is a collaboration between Itamar Mizrahi and the curator Marina Pozner - art director, scholar and creator of experiential and multi-sensory art spaces. Marina explores eating experience design as a driver of change.
Marina and Itamar have worked together since 2017, creating art projects that fuse dance and performance. The current exhibition, a new and additional milestone, reflects the collaboration between the two by creating a space presenting the art of painting as an audiovisual installation, diverging from classic collaborations.