Roadside, a new exhibition by artist and teacher Yoram Afek, presents pieces from several of his work cycles from the last few years. The works bring together materials typically associated with “high art” and objects that have lost or fulfilled their function, things he picked up from the roadside and brought to his studio.

Afek treats them all equally and without judgment, enforcing no hierarchies and always making sure to preserve the material’s original properties. A very important place in Afek’s process is given to manual labor like welding, blacksmithing, woodworking and metalworking – crafts that bring together materials that are practically antithetical to each other. 

Afek’s process is reminiscent of the bricoleur described by Claude Lévi-Strauss in his book “The Savage Mind”. The bricoleur collects fragments of events, memories and materials available to him and, using manual labor, connects them in unexpected ways. In doing so, the bricoleur creates a new syntax that disrupts existing hierarchies and subverts existing knowledge. Similarly, Afek makes connections between objects that encode various historical and cultural layers that are often contrasting. Like the bricoleur’s connections, Afek’s pairings break conventions and destabilize cultural and social constructs.  They stem from the humanist worldview that resonates and seeps into his art.

Grand opening: 12:00, 21 Jan 2023
Exhibition closes: 15 Aug 2023
The exhibition is open Sunday-Thursday and Saturdays between 09:00-15:00

Curator: Ruty Chinsky-Amitay