¡°Peaceful be your return O lovely bird from warm lands back to my window¡.¡±
¡°The Zionist poet, Hayim Nachman Bialik, wrote these lines while studying at Yeshiva (Jewish theological Seminary) in Europe, just before he abandoned it, and long before immigrating to Israel. In this poem, Bialik addresses an imaginary bird that migrated from Palestine to his window; expressing his loneliness, the cold of exile and longing to return to the Promised Land. One hundred and twenty years later, the Zionist bird of Bialik, like many other Zionist symbols, is robbed off its meaning.
One hundred and twenty years later, the Zionist bird of Bialik, like many other Zionist symbols, is robbed off its meaning. Zionism gave way to nationalism and militarism and the radical opponents from the Left defined this condition: Post-Zionism.
While exploring the fall of the Zionist dream (as in the sculptural installation Nimrod and Bird what do you sing, somebody else sings from your throat), my sculptures ask to readdress that old vision. Presenting these empty symbols in various positions may not be a notion of Post-Post-Zionism, but a way of looking at them with compassion ten years after parting with them when I left my homeland, Israel, towards a wishful exile¡±.
Achia Anzi
The artist deals with the spiritual crisis (besides the political and the social crisis) Israel is experiencing and his own personal feelings towards his land of birth. Many in Israel claim that the Zionist dream is over, that now one stands on a different point, which could be called post Zionism. The Artist desires to reflect again, through his sculptures, on those old ideals and vision, not in order to reawaken them from their eternal sleep but as a gesture of mourning and longing. He uses iron, plaster, tin sheet and scrap material for his sculptures and sculptural installations. The works are crude, coarse, distressed and abrasive so as to convey feelings of pain and destruction.
Born in 1979, Achia Anzi moved to India from Israel ten years ago .He graduated (BFA) and Post Graduated (MFA) in Sculpture from University of Rajasthan in 2004 -2010.He earned a Diploma and BA in Urdu Honors, from The National Council for Promotion of the Urdu, in 2008. He also studied MA in History of Art from the National Museum Institute, New Delhi, 2011 and has been living in India for the last 10 years.
This is the artist¡¯s first solo show, in keeping with our galleries vision of converging on rising talents at the "threshold" of strong flights.
Nimrod
Fiberglass, painted plaster, jute, tin sheet, metal wire
54 x 19 x 9"
Untitled
Metal, painted tin sheet, gold plated copper
27 x 18 x 12"
Untitled
Painted tin sheet, barbed wire
30 x 24 x 24"
Roots
Painted metal pipes, sand
69 'x 60 x 30''
Hourglass
Metal, barbed wire & plaster of paris on plastic sheet
51 'x 24 x 21"
And God said, let there be light
Mixed media on board, Diptych 1
48 x 84 x 12.5"
And God said, let there be light
Oil & metal wire on board, Diptych 2
48" x 84"
Peaceful be your return o lovely bird, from warm lands back to my window
