Operating Instructions

Michal Tamir & Maya Kaplan
Curator: Lior Shvil

13.10.22-11.11.22

Gallery Talk: Saturday, 22.10.22, 11:00

Exhibition Event:

Human Marionette
An acrobatic dance theater performance
by Maya Kaplan

Thursday, October 13, 2022, 21:00
Thursday, November 10, 2022, 20:00

In the performance “Human Marionette”, Kaplan addresses questions about the human being’s freedom and ability to maintain a unique identity in a world full of limitations and dictates. A marionette mechanism, which both controls bodily movements and is controlled by them, is at the center of the performance. While the artist’s body is hanging in the air, ropes connecting her hands and legs, her movements react to the limitations the mechanism creates. Through states of struggle, surrender and capitulation, Kaplan reaches a state of euphoria when she achieves complete control over the restraining mechanism. Three human marionette characters appear in the performance, clothed in a special, colorful collection, designed by Kaplan and created especially for the performance. The collection’s items and accessories distort the body parts and determine their movements. The performance soundtrack is composed of sounds from Kaplan’s childhood, combined with original music by Symbolico.  

Performers: Maya Kaplan, Geffen Gabai, Tiferet Klimovsky. 

Operating Instructions

In the two-person show Operating Instructions, artists Michal Tamir (paintings and sculpture) and Maya Kaplan (works in performance and various mediums) present a dialogue, through which they examine their status in the world and the illusion that they control their own bodies and fate.   

In her expressive paintings, which are full of movement, Tamir presents contemplative, theatrical scenes from every day. Grungy, pastel-colored shapes are woven alongside each other like patchwork, piling up and creating pictures that are melancholy, heart-rending and full of horror: a self-portrait with swollen face painted following a hyaluronic acid injection that went wrong, a gathering of two family-members around the dining table, a mother and daughter embrace, a nurse smokes with a friend on a hospital bed. Romantic and low-tech, Tamir paints from the gut on paper and canvas; she invades and fuses herself within a totalistic painting experience, attempting to create solace. 

Sophisticated, contemporary, processed, trapped in a series of costumes nailed to her body like a robotic shell, covered with childhood drawings that have undergone digital processing and distortion, Kaplan transforms herself into a marionette. In a breathtaking, colorful and terrifying performance, hands tied to legs, she struggles and attempts to move while wrapped in artificial materials in pastel-fluorescent colors, which possess a texture that is neither organic nor mechanical. She mocks the viewer and burns on the inside. In a single moment of grace and redemption, she unlocks the movement mechanism that enslaves her, spreads her wings and flies. 

Two theaters meet in the middle of life, through color, material, sound and movement, in an attempt to figure something out, to conduct soul-searching, to confess one’s sins, to evaluate the ravages of time, to search for relief. 

One is mute, frozen in time and calls out from the walls. The other, circusy and jittery, runs through the gallery space without respite. Two turbulent souls meet for a moment, dance around each other, then each continues on their own way.        

About the Artists 

Michal Tamir, painter, born in 1976. Tamir holds a BFA from the Department of Visual Communication, and an MFA in Fine Arts, from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. She specialized in figurative painting in the master class programs of the Jerusalem Studio School and Hatahana Studio, Tel Aviv. Her graphic novel, “The Quiet Beach”, was published by Matar Books. She is a guest lecturer at Shenkar and the founder and director of Pushpin, a school for preparatory studies in design and art, which has been active for about 20 years. 

Maya Kaplan - Performance artist, fashion and accessory designer, Kaplan combines digital media and craftwork. Born in 1992, she is a graduate of the Department of Jewelry and Fashion at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. She was awarded academic achievement prizes (2019-2022), the Andy Prize for outstanding achievement in the field of Craft (2022), the Meisler Prize (2022) as well as the Lockman Prize for Applied Arts (2021). Participated in the exhibition Expo Dubai 2020 (2022), and in November will participate in the fashion festival “Fashionclash”, in the Netherlands. 

Exhibition Season: Flooded

The exhibition Operating Instructions is the fifth of the 2022-2023 exhibition season, dedicated to the theme: Flooded.

We live in an era that is flooded and flooding. The world is overflowing like a river. While we must flow with the current, we actually have trouble keeping our heads above water, especially with FOMO hovering above us. Boundaries melt in the spheres of the psychological / consciousness and the physical / corporeal / geographical. There are too many possibilities and choosing between them is confusing. 

Through the exhibition series “Flooded”, Alfred Gallery strives to anchor islands in the unending flow of events, images, talks and words. Although the flooding is uncontrollable, it is not passive. It is a conflict arena, an upheaval that threatens to spill over, it is movement, struggle and conciliation. We have asked artists for proposals and ideas for exhibitions and events that flood or are flooded, and consider different aspects of this exhibition season’s title.