Exhibitions

French philosopher Michel Foucault claimed that power is not the result of institutions, but rather a kind of creative entity in and of itself, defining man in relation to himself, and organizing social relations. This entity spreads its wings over both rulers and ruled, in a complex network that determines the limits of power and its legal enforcement. In contemporary politics power operates as a "post-truth regime," using alternative facts, generalizations, and subtle manipulations to influence the public's emotions and thereby control public discourse. In this age, strong opinion matters more than facts.

This exhibition addresses the role of the poster in the internet age, with the emergence of a new public space that places no clear limits on what can be advertised and where. While Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube do choose to censor the content they host according to guidelines that determine which content may offend their user community, a significant amount goes undetected by "Big Brother."

In 2003, the Haifa Museum of Art held the exhibition "Video Zero: Communication Interferences: The Projected Image – The First Decade." This exhibition sought to address the lack of philosophical and critical discussion of the medium of video art in the Israeli art scene. The exhibition focused on the medium's early days, beginning in the 1960s during the cultural revolutions that sought to challenge the hegemony of the establishment.

In the press and in the media – whether printed, broadcast, or published online – we are presented with distorted information. This commissioned, filtered information is carefully chosen and edited before invading our lives and dictating our actions. The exhibiting artists seek to expose and emphasize the contexts and conditions in which data and news items are organized and presented. They explore the system of socio-political, technological, and economic forces that mobilize the media industry.

The authentic identity at the heart of modern Western culture was formulated by numerous philosophers. The authentic individual, according to Friedrich Nietzsche, is the "Superman" (Übermensch), who rises above himself and replaces God as the creator of the universe. Martin Heidegger articulated the call for authenticity by placing man in a constant free movement toward self-realization, peaking in the individual's solitary confrontation with his own demise, which is nothingness. Jean-Paul Sartre defined the authentic man as he who is sentenced to liberty and acknowledges the void as the heart of his existential identity.

The exhibition addresses the phenomenon of overload in the post-fact age, which is characterized by exaggerated reliance on social media as a source of knowledge. This tendency stems from a loss of faith in the official, journalistic, and news-oriented institutions, and from data overflow. Today, an endless stream of stimuli masks the truth and makes good judgment and clear messaging difficult. The exhibition seeks to explore how this phenomenon of overload is expressed in art, presenting projects by three artists: Ronit Baranga, Cristina De Middel, and Alon Kedem.

This exhibition explores the world of the hybrids as an alternative existence reflecting the fluid, unstable, and complex identity of woman in the contemporary cultural discourse, as described by prominent feminist thinkers such as Rosi Braidotti and Donna Haraway. In this context, the idea of the "nomad," used by Braidotti, is another name for the feminine.

Iris Kensmil's exhibition is part of a project that represented the Netherlands in 2019 at the Venice Biennale. In many senses the Biennale is an important arena for defining the place of art in the context of ideas of citizenship and nationality. The installation Kensmil presented there, called The Measurement of Presence, was created in collaboration with Remy Jungerman.

Multidisciplinary artist Rona Yefman often engages with issues of gender and feminine representation. Her art includes long-term collaborations with radical personalities who dictate the absurd and iconic images of our time. She is particularly interested in photography. According to Yefman, the camera allows things to happen.

This exhibition is based on Yael Meiry's artist's book, Doing Right by You, published in 2018. The book is based on an archive containing about 150 photographs, in which the artist photographed themself, the people close to them, and the spaces around them. As in other projects, Meiry uses low-tech technologies alongside digital media.