Avital Cnaani Born 1978, Israel. Live and Work in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Education

1. Avital Cnaani Born 1978, Israel. Live and Work in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Education • 2006 – Graduate Studies – Bezalel – Academy of Arts and Design. • 2001-2005 – B.E.D (with honors) Hamidrasha School of Art; Beit Berl College, Israel. Solo Exhibition • 2004- “Cabri Place of Art” – Kibbutz Cabri Gallery. Group Exhibition • 2007 – “Relay Race” – Four Generation of Feminism in Israeli Art • 2007 – “The Congress 17”, Tel-Aviv • 2006 – Gordon Gallery, Tel-Aviv. • 2005 – “The Scream” – Homage to Munch. ‘Kav 16’ Gallery, Tel-Aviv. • 2005 – “Artic 7” – an America-Israel Cultural Foundation exhibition of the recipients of The Sharett scholarship. Awards • 2005- Recipient of Excellency Award, Hamidrasha School of Art. • 2004-5- America-Israel Cultural Foundation Awards.

2. Artist Statement My work is in a zone straddling drawing and sculpture. These are territories characterized as stain and lump which are in constant struggle with the image that is coming into existence. The iron sculptures are a plastic comment of the Israeli reality, expressing itself through the architectonic elements that relate to the landscape, and exhibit romantic and critical threads at the same time. While making a dialogue with the sculptural language of minimalism, the figurative body manifests itself through imprints of the human and physical being. The sculptures define the body and the landscape and create power relations between them; at times by subtle action when the massive iron is handled as if delicately folding paper.

3. The image of the mountain is present and central to my projects. The representation of the landscape is flat - one dimensional -becoming the echo of itself in its sculptural existence in both drawings and video works. The flatness is looking to erase the inherent sculptural being of the material as volumetric mass, transforming and leaving it behind as a trace of a visual mass. The drawings are mostly made with carbon copy paper and ink. They describe the connections between reality sites and stains that threaten to cover them. The drawing line moves between intention – the one that controls and copies – and unselfconsciousness. In my works, I use motifs relating to power, jostling, territorial control and ostentation. These harass the observer of the artworks and they assign nature and the land as central elements of control procedures.

4. Open Space/Kassel Statement I'm very curious to take part and advantage of the opportunity of having a dialogue on art with artist culling from all around the world. The workshop gathers art creators under the umbrella of one of the peak ceremonies in the contemporary art world: Documenta. This encounter offers me an in-depth examination of the relevance of my artwork at the local and global levels and these questions appear at an automatic and material level. I am also concerned with the matter of art criticism as it relates to the possibility of referring in direct ways to art history: can art history still be a relevant cultural source of reference to criticism? Furthermore, I think about the possibility of the existence of these sculptural and drawing mediums as independent: in what manner does the object/sculpture exist in contemporary art? Can it stand strong in its physical presence or does it exist through the material's representation as a photographic image? These are my questions -Where and how is the place of sculpture in the era of video and post-installation?