Archeology of the Present

Tsibi Geva, one of Israel’s most prominent and influential artists, presents “Archeology of the Present”, a new, site-specific installation for the Israeli pavilion at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia.

Geva’s most ambitious project to date extends over the exterior of the Israeli Pavilion building as well as through its interior. The pavilion is entirely enveloped with over a thousand used black tires, brought in from Israel, tightly tied to each other to create a grid which forms a protective layer of sorts.

Although Geva has been working with used tires for many years, this is the first time he has covered the exterior of such a large structure. This envelope turns the entire pavilion into a sculptural event that is visible from afar and which functions, at first sight, as an outdoor work on the grounds of the Giardini. The used tires, which are impregnated with a distinct odour, form an organized network of holes imbued with a protective potential, while simultaneously attesting to a state of danger, constituting a powerful material presence, and communicating a charged, urgent visual and political statement.

Upon entering the pavilion, the exterior installation is visible once again from the inside, together with an interior installation including paintings, sculptural elements, and found objects, abolishing hierarchical distinctions between artistic mediums and structures.

In a year when curator Okwui Enwezor proposes to focus on “All the World’s Futures,” Geva’s site-specific, all-encompassing installation may also be read with regard to the current state of humanity and the world. His long-term engagement with the stratified structure of identity, and “Archeology of the Present” in particular, offer an opportunity to explore this notion within the wider narrative of nationality as proposed by la Biennale di Venezia.

Tsibi Geva (b. 1951) has exhibited extensively in major venues in Israel, the United States, and Europe. He works in diverse media, his work often pushing beyond its physical limits into unique large-scale, site-specific installations.
“Archeology of the Present” gives expression to Geva’s ongoing concern with elements related to the notion of ‘home’ – including terrazzo tiles, windows, shutters, lattices, and cement blocks; elements which exist as fragments of what once was, or could in principle constitute, a home, yet not as the vestiges of an actual, concrete house. The concept of home, which repeatedly resurfaces in Geva’s work over the years, thus remains, a locus of distilled longing; an unrealized dream about a coherent, unquestioned identity.

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