Anat Litwin
Biography
Anat Litwin, founder of the Home project, is an Israeli artist and curator based in Brooklyn. Litwin received her BFA from the Bezalel Academy, Department of Fine Art in Jerusalem, Israel in 2001, and her MFA from Hunter College in NY, Department of Combined Media, in 2005. Since 1999 Anat has been creating, exhibiting, and curating in various venues in Israel,Albania, the USA and Italy. Her Recent Solo exhibition in Tel-Aviv titled “Popsicle Positions” was installed in Fall 2007 at the Inga Gallery, and include the paper cut-out series and two large scale installations.
During 2005-2007 Litwin has served as the Director of the Makor Gallery and the Makor Artists-in-Residence program of the 92nd St Y, and previous to that as Makor Faculty member and Gallery curator. It is through this experience that she has realized the importance of a artistic communal setting as catalyst for artistic exploration and dialog and has decided to create HomeBase as an alternative format to the existing art venues, one which is focused on the cultural impact of a vital art community devoted to study, exploration, and public engagement.
Creative Process
My observations of the notion of home led me to build a simple and dysfunctional structure for the Home Base II Project titled Monument for Luftgesheft. Luftgesheft is a Yiddish word that means “business deals built in the air.” This is a cynical phrase that relates to empty and nonsense-oriented exchanges.
Monument for Luftgesheft aims to create a tension between the concrete and the ephemeral. It celebrates the transient and stands as an oxymoron to the commercial urban environment of the SOHO neighborhood in which the Home Base II Project was set, and in opposition to the materialistic possessions of home.
In this work, I chose to overlap two key “home” aspects: The first aspect refers to architecture, construction, and the actual building of home; the second refers to a more abstract emotional structure, consisting of values, beliefs, and experiences that together assemble an understanding of home.
From a construction-oriented point of view, the pillar stands as a central architectural component. It is what holds the roof up in a literal sense. This pillar of cards appears determined to “fulfill” its constructive role despite its extreme vulnerability and the overriding
threat of gravitation, and succeeds to extend itself up to the ceiling.The blank playing cards that are used as building blocks in this structure function as a universal symbol of game playing. They attempt to convey a general sense of playfulness and mischief. They are bonded together with melted beeswax, alluding to a more domestic aspect of home — one connected to candle-lighting, ritual,and memory. The organic beeswax also echoes the passing of time, and the wearing of the body.
Monument for Luftgesheft is assembled with bold faith, self humor, determination, and intense labor. It is an odd and somewhat ridiculous structure that speaks to the act of gambling, of risking the security of the familiar in order to find resources within to rise, of erecting the impossible. I find that this pillar functions as a spine of human spirit and as a column of compassion and faith.
It is what I find essential to keep the roof from collapsing in and to that extent – is home.
contact: litwinanat@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it