Crossing Lines – From Line to Thread

The common thread running through the exhibition is each artist’s special attraction to linear movement and its centrality in their works. Lines play an important role in all cultures, because they contribute to understanding, interpretation, and representation of reality. Humans, regardless of their affinity for art, consciously or unconsciously create lines. As walking and talking creatures who use hand gestures, humans create lines in space and time everywhere and continuously. A line can be material, like a thread, or immaterial – geometric or imaginary – like longitude and latitude lines and the horizon. A line can be a sequence of points, a product of thought, or an element associated with physical action, as in calligraphy and dance, for example.

Elements of lines, traces, and threads run between the works displayed in the exhibition and weave a multi-layered fabric of meanings. The exhibition is divided into metaphors of lines and threads – Timeline; Horizon; Line, Thread and Identity, “Story Line”, Thread of Memory, Line of Separation / Line of Erasure, Body Lines and Lifeline. Throughout the exhibition, the central idea of a dialogue between line and thread is maintained – the line separates from the foundation and becomes a thread, and the thread applied to a surface becomes a line; a thread is represented by a line, and a line is represented by a thread.

The artists exhibiting in the exhibition: Dvora Morag, Yael Shilo, Ofri Cnaani, Fouad Agbaria, Orna Mintz, Noa Raz Melamed, Nurit Gur-Lavi Karni, Lezli Rubin-Kunda, Nastya Faybish, Vardi Bobrow, Ronit Mirski, Farid Abu Shakra, Noa Yekutieli, Yakira Ament, Fatma Shanan, Sagit Zluf Namir, Penny Hes Yassour, Erez Aharon, Dafna Alexandroni, Yaara Kalifi Carmi, Tal Amitai-Lavi, Tova Lotan, Addam Yekutieli, Meirav Davish Ben-Moshe, Edna Ohana, Orly Montag, Samah Shihadi, Ariane Littman, Fatima Abu Roomi, Aseel Eyadat, Katya Zorin Kalev, Ann Ruth Faktorovich, Lilach Sega, Daria Konshtik. Alongside them are artists whose works are part of the museum's collection – Nelly Agassi, Miriam Cabessa, Michael Argov, Batia Grossbard, Joshua Neustein, Aviva Uri and Yocheved Weinfeld. Among the Israeli artists are the international artists – Wu Chi-Tsung (Taiwan), Chiharu Shiota and Chiharu Yakushigawa (Japan).

The exhibition was made possible through the generous support of the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Haifa Municipality, the Schusterman Foundation – Israel, and the Taiwan Representative Office in Israel.

Curator: Dr. Etty Glass Gissis