The prints in this wide-ranging exhibition are made with a rich variety of printmaking techniques and deal with the body and corporality. This comprehensive subject takes on various interpretations, which can sometimes even be contradictory. The body, be it human, animal or fictional, constitutes for the artists a tool for dealing with the biographical, political or mystical. In other cases, it is a locus for a process of abstraction, a formal quest and material and sensual research.

Another aspect of the body expressed in the prints is the physical involvement of the artist in the production process of printmaking. Even today, most of the printmaking techniques are performed completely manually; in fact, in many cases the physical effort required in this medium is the very motive for its creation. The artist’s physical contact with the necessary equipment and materials accompanies all stages of the printmaking process, hence charging the prints with the memory of the movement of the artist’s body.

Special attention in the exhibition is given to works referring to the plates and stencils of printmaking, which had been cut, punctured and manipulated by the artists. In some works, the plates themselves evolved into independent works – separate from the function of being pressed on paper – becoming sculptural entities liberated from their original “role”.

“Strange Creatures”, a term from the Sages’ Blessings of Seeing, refers to creatures that look different according to the Halakha and are accepted as part of the entire Creation. Thus, each print in the exhibition has its own presence, its own unique formal and substantial weight, accommodating the physical presence of its creator as a fingerprint.

Link to the Catalog