Solo exhibition

curated by Elisa Camesasca
FMAV, Modena, Italy – March 23 – June 10, 2023

The exhibition was created in close correlation with the world premiere of the homonymous icon-sonic string quartet, conceived by Avital, that took place at the Pavarotti-Freni Municipal Theatre in Modena. Among the numerous artworks on show, a series of watercolors depicting birds, created by the artist during the first lockdown and a photographic series depicting the performance that took place during the artistic seclusion in an old villa in the Modenese hills, where, under the artist’s direction, Meitar Ensemble while learning the score, slowly experienced a metamorphosis into birds.

“Perceived from time immemorial as animals endowed with special powers, birds throughout history have constantly fascinated mankind, populating its symbolic universe in art, literature, music and film. From the ornithomancy practised by the ancient Greeks, who interpreted the auspiciousness of birds in their flight and song, in more recent times the image of these creatures as sad messengers of ominous omens has become increasingly popular.
In Avital’s work, however, birds take on an entirely different meaning: they are the jagged pieces of the mirror of his soul, reflected in multiple guises in a dense correspondence between one and many, between dream and reality, between microcosm and macrocosm. The artist divides himself between the self enclosed in an intimate, muffled dimension, forced within four walls, and the self stretched outwards, towards that vital charge he cannot wait to find again.
And the key to understanding this project is given to us by Avital himself when he states: “During the creative process I later understood that this artwork is not about birds. It is about me’.”
Excerpt from exhibition brochure text by Elisa Camesasca, curator