OPAQUE

Curator: Guy Morag Tzepelewitz

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The exhibition was presented as part of the Israeli design season in Holon City.

34 Israeli designers and artists from various fields including: fashion design, photography, video art, sculpture, poetry, painting, drawing, and fashion refer to the well-known item found in every home - black opaque trash bags. Each of them took it into their own world and gave it a life of it's own.

In our automatic memory and imagination, an opaque black plastic bag refers to at least two radically different matters. On the one hand - the disposable trash bag designed to contain household garbage, and on the other hand - body bags that are used after a person's death. In both cases, the color and appearance are similar but the content is completely different, from the most precious thing to us to waste that has no importance and value.

The black opaque color of the bag is intended to hide its contents from the eye of the viewer, sometimes out of shame for what is in it, and sometimes actually to preserve the honor of the dead.

The material from which the household trash bag familiar to us is made of an organic synthetic polymer, better known by its trade name - Nylon. Since nylon decomposes very slowly in nature, the concept of sustainability has led to many ideas among artists who's creative mind constantly tries to "turn trash into gold".

Such an example was seen at one of the last fashion weeks shows in Paris where 'Balenciaga' launched a bag inspired by a trash bag and looked almost identical to the original item, made of calf leather, decorated with a subtle logo, and priced at $1,700. The models walked on the runway with "trash bags" in their hands as a symbol of refugees, who were forced to put their small belongings in their bags as they fled from their homes in a hurry, only with the bags to wander the world and look for a new place to live.

The appeal to the artists participating in the exhibition created some surprising works that are displayed both inside  the gallery rooms and outside.

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Among the works:

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Debbie Oshrat - Black Rain. Mixed technique (2023):

Climate crisis and global pollution are happening before our eyes... getting worse... and we can no longer ignore them. I created from black trash bags, an installation of a black cloud that brings down black rain!!

As Bob Dylan wrote, translated and sung by Jonathan Geffen: "Soon, soon, soon, soon, soon, soon, heavy rain is going to fall." This is a wake up call, before the catastrophy comes... because we have no other house to live in...