Transparent Channels, 2001
LBLux S.A., Luxemburg
Essay: Doron Polak
Dorit Feldman’s new exhibition introduces one into timeless realms, exposing artistic and imaginary, explicit and implicit, comprehensible and incomprehensible, physical and metaphysical communication channels.
Feldman’s conceptual world is delineated not only between heaven and earth, two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality, past and present. She strives towards a new aesthetic dimension, future-oriented, perpetually addressing an original, apt duality, one that is linked to her inner truth.
In this context, as a key for interpretation, one ought to consider Kant’s philosophy as discussed in Herbert Marcuse’s book Eros and Civilization, where the latter argues that the fundamental antagonism between subject and object is reflected in a new dichotomy of mental faculties: sensuality vs. intellect (perception), passion vs. cognition, practical vs. theoretical wisdom. He maintains that a “faculty” is required which would mediate between the realms of nature and freedom, between inferior and superior faculties, between the faculties of passion and knowledge.
Dorit Feldman creates pertinent links between the site in which she exhibits her work, spanning the totality of its physical, functional, formal, and historical features, on one hand, and the creative, theoretical “self”, validated through her artistic study, and the dilemmas and questions arising from the philosophy of science, on the other. According to this perception, it is science that provides the best explication for the phenomena and various issues pertaining to our sensory perceptions as human beings. The assembly of these feelings and sensations is dubbed “nature”, and the target of science is, thus, perceived not as a description of external reality, but rather as an efficient calculation of perceptions.
The channel of communication sustained by Feldman for two decades now originates in the practices she pursues in her studio, located in a rural area in the center of Israel. Departing from this highly-charged local land, she strives to create a dialogue with other artists from various countries who engage in diverse media.
As an art producer and the Israeli Director of the International Artists’ Museum, I had the privilege of connecting between Dorit Feldman and artist Igor Sacharow-Ross, an enigmatic link as far as their common preoccupation with the fields of science, medicine, physics, energy, biology, philosophy, and tradition is concerned.
The current project continues my own personal dialogue with Dorit through exhibitions I have produced and/or curated in recent years. Fields of Memory in Salzburg and Moscow; MiniArtura in Italy; Artists Messengers of Peace in Tokyo and South America; Encoded Libraries in Graz, Austria; Milestones for Peace in New York; and Markers within the framework of the 49th Venice Biennale.
The duality inherent in presenting Feldman’s works in prestigious museums, on one hand, and their exposure in public art centers, lobbies, hi-tech companies and offices, on the other, introduces another open aspect of her oeuvre – the yearning for the existing and the present, the lively and the rhythmic, the real and mundane, the here and now.
Feldman’s present artistic creation indeed relies, to a large extent, on past discoveries, but it always looks to the future, introducing open existential quandaries, a whole world of images both concealed and revealed, vague and surprising materials. It is a dream-like journey linking the viewer to eternal spheres.
Doron Polak, Curator and Producer
Projective – The Artists’ Museum