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Thin Cities  |  Tali Benbassat

Curator: Yaniv Lachman

 

Like the invisible city revealed to us as planes accumulated on the stilts of Italo Calvino's imagination, surfaces upon surfaces pile up in Tali Benbassat's artistic territory, emerging as spaces devoid of either contours or a designated use. Whether overlapping or offset, the surfaces are all anchored to an organizing "skeleton"—lines that guide logic and demarcation. The skeleton gathers the surfaces, fastening them together and stacking them, to form a multilayered structure, which presents itself to us as one. 

Bringing together a selection of Benbassat's works, the exhibition "Thin Cities" is a minuet of paintings and drawings, moving forward and backward. As in a binary field, they echo each other with masterful precision to form a harmonious movement.

The selected body of work featured in the exhibition may be likened to an anthology that assembles Benbassat's works from recent years, oscillating between figurative and abstract, canvas and paper, exterior and interior.

 

Tali Benbassat (born in Israel; lives and works in Tel Aviv) is a graduate of the Midrasha Art Teachers' Training College (currently Beit Berl Academic College's School of Art), and Shenkar College of Engineering, Design, and Art, Ramat Gan (Extension Studies). She has been an active artist since graduating, exhibiting regularly. Over the years, she has expanded her practice from painting and drawing to printmaking and etching.

Her works have been featured in solo exhibitions, including the recent "HxWxD" at The Lobby Art Space, Tel Aviv (2022) and "Motion is Yet to Come" at Almacén Gallery, Jaffa (2020), and in numerous group exhibitions, such as "Traces VII: Action-Line—The 7th Biennale for Drawing in Israel," Jerusalem Artists' House (2019); "Contemporary Local Print," Jerusalem Print Workshop (2018); "5 Artists: Wonderous Worlds," Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2009); "History of Violence," Haifa Museum of Art (2009); and "Disruptions," Petach Tikva Museum of Art (2006).

Over the years she received many grants and awards, including: the Alima Rita Prize for the Art of Printmaking, Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod (2020); The Minister of Culture and Sports Award for Visual Artists (2018); the Creativity Encouragement (2003) and Work Acquisition (2002) Awards on behalf of the Ministry of Science, Culture, and Sports. Her works are in various museum collections, including the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Ashdod Art Museum, as well as in private collections in Israel and abroad.

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