Pierre Huyghe. He is a French artist who specializes in video, animation, film, and installation. When I visited his exhibition, my jaw dropped. I was there for a few hours. He changed my view of art. One work that I connected with deeply is a figurative Renaissance sculpture on which he placed a helmet made of a beehive. The bees buzzed and kept buzzing. It was an amazing and innovative way to think about the filters and masks surrounding us. I think about this artwork often.
His works reference duration, which is something I very much connect to. Even if it is very minor, there is almost always some movement that occurs in his artworks. In my installations, too, I make small movements, like the gentle movement of water. It's significant to me to think of duration as something that brings life into the exhibition. Even if the exhibition space is closed, or no visitors are present, the work still has some internal occurrence in it.
I try to see things through a tourist's gaze; to wander around and go to the same place I always go to but from a different path so that it refreshes the way I perceive it. I sample objects in space and check what activates them or me. These can be very trivial things. I look at everyday objects and suddenly see them as rough diamonds.
Readymade interests me because it is usually loaded with meanings. I am very interested in acting from the existing meaning, from the energy of the object and its materiality, and adding a new layer of meaning to it. When I start working, I try to listen to what the object is asking for, and what it wants to
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From a young age, teachers would tell my mother that all I do in class is draw in a notebook. I was a child who sailed to other worlds and disconnected from things that did not interest her, drawing and wandering. During primary school, I worked on a portfolio so I could study art in Middle school. I was not accepted into the program, while all my friends did. As a child, I did not have the tools to deal with an adult world that tells you that you are not suitable. It broke my heart.
At Bezalel, I first joined the ceramics and glass department, probably because I felt like this was a safe bet and my way to overcome my fears of rejection when it comes to art-making. I had previously worked with a pottery wheel and was an assistant to a ceramicist. As early as the second year of my undergraduate studies, I left the ceramic material and have not returned to it since. Slowly I began to get acquainted with other materials.
Maayan Shahar, 33, multidisciplinary artist, Lives in Herzliya, works in Tel Aviv.
