with Avner Sher, Mariana Vassileva
Curator: Drorit Gur Arie
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Work in Progress – Personal Map Since 2008: Nezaket Ekici
The opening on the 26.10.2019 will also feature "With The Stream" - a performance by Franziska Harnisch. The event will start at 20:00 and is part of the project Reality in C1 curated by Dan Allon.

Avner Sher's works are typified by an act of violent wounding. He works with cork boards and cork peels—a porous, resilient woody substance. The external tissue cells of the cork oak trunk die and are replaced every few years. New cells emerge out of the trauma, preserving the tree's appearance, which continues its physiological rejuvenation and growth. A material capable of surviving wood fire, the cork represents the cycle of birth and revelation, death and resurrection, often informing Sher's practice. Operating like a surgeon, he paints, sculpts, and carves with various knives in the wooden substance, conjuring up images from different strata of consciousness.
The exhibition takes its title from Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai's book, Open Closed Open.1 Amichai discusses the peeling of history's layers, moving like a pendulum between times, broken feelings, and memory fragments which entrench themselves in the mundane reality. Sher—an architect by profession—delves into historical monuments and geographical signs imbued with the imprints of erosive time, spawning new configurations, either concocted or based on ancient maps.
Ten obelisks bearing imaginary signs and symbols of the ten plagues of Egypt welcome the viewer. Their installation as an arc of triumph echoes Brandenburg Gate—an emblem of victory saturated in domination and terror. Excerpts of old maps of Jerusalem and Berlin are placed on the gallery floor like a jigsaw puzzle, pieced together, recounting a fictive story which nevertheless touches upon the acute reality.
The fracture and its healing, deconstruction and reconstruction, as well as the tension between past and present—among the features of both Jerusalem and Berlin as two divided cities transpiring along a seam—introduce spatial and political questions. Through the three-dimensional floor installation and its images, they echo thoughts about tourist-oriented miniature models of historical processes and events.
Concurrent with Sher's solo exhibition, the project room features video works by Bulgarian-born, Berlin-based artist Mariana Vassileva, who examines traditions and rituals.