ADINA BAR-ON        PERFORMANCE ARTIST

Since Visual Communication deals with questions of aesthetics and issues of taste – beautiful/not beautiful, worthy/not worthy, right/not right – it seems that discution on preferances and bias may benefited by the art work, which is its language.

PARTNERS OF THE PROJECT:

Adina Bar-On, Aesthetics and Bias​ ​

(excerpts from the text originally written by Adina Bar-On for first “Aesthetics and Bias” exhibition)

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The loaded connection between aesthetics and bias is the heart and the content of my creative work as a Performance Artist, the subject dealt with in my classes, at the various Art Education frame works, as well as the actual motivation for this present initiative.



Most of the works presented in this exhibition are of those students who participated in the 10 day workshop that took place in Israel on December 2008 – students from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and students from Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Jerusalem. Other works, I decided to include, are of my students from past and present and some who are already independent young artists.



Bias and myths are an inseparable part of culture and of the common aesthetic frame works  in which we function and in accordance to which we assess and judge ourselves and our surroundings. These are inevitable creations of culture, products of deep and the more ancient needs of man`s soul. The bias and the myth are signifiers of a archetypal connection, tribal or local, in  whose depths exist the passionate and creative, pointing essentially at the fear of  instablility and the fear of perishing. It is amazing and fascinating to realize that even after close and personal relationships are established, between people, the myth and the bias will linger as a stand by crotch to be guarded by.



From this point of view,  High Art may facilitate those iconic images and the story like relationships between them. The motive of the creation of Art and of Visual Communication could be an attempt to loosen the single minded myth by untying  the tight out line of the image. For the artist, as well,, these single minded out lines could be attractive in their demand of a subtelty and a delicate handling, beginning with an acquaintance with its harsh and seemingly ireversable connections ,that compromise the myth, than the falling back and the immersion, until the establishment of  a personal language which should bear a brand new point of view.  



No doubt that the myth and the bias color reality and one`s interpretations of it. They blur our sight and cause us to view the other from a narrower angle. Since Visual Communication deals with questions of aesthetics and issues of taste – beautiful/not beautiful, worthy/not worthy, right/not right – it seems that discution on preferances and bias may benefited by the art work, which is its language.



The connection between issues on aesthetics and the consciousness to bias, these being critical and influencial in relationships between nations and people, have always been my preoccupation. In the past 10 years, in which I often performed abroad, have become familiar with different cultures in eastern countries (Asia and Europe) and western countries (Europe and America) in which  I   established genuine personal and social ties, the need arouse to give additional expression to this unique and important connection.

My travels and performances in the past years took place also in hours of tension in the Middle East, and in times of harsh national conflicts, that created extreme crticism towards Israel. It is    there fore inevitable that my work, that relates to the political and social reality in our region, were called upon and iterpreted on this packground. This fact forced me to deal with the difficult and uncompromising face of the bias in a straight forward and courageous form, both in the other approach to my work and in my own approach to the others work.



The workshop and exhibition “Aesthetics and Bias” signify the start of a tradition of discussion and observation in interprative and creative research, on this subject. In the meeting of the students from Poland and Israel workshop classes were conducted, in which art was created, joint visits to landmarks of historical, religious and national importance, and jorneys to communities, situated on the borders, were conducted.
The meeting, as a whole, was a frame work for an intellectual emotional and creative discussions in which inter-personal points of view were recognised, as well as inter-group, iner-cultural inter-national, in an attempt for a genuine discussion on stareotype stands and the possibilities for untying them on a common background of the language of visual communication and the creation of contemporary art.

In light of the grave contents that we touched upon, perhaps the works presented in the exhibition are still searching their way beyond that which is obvious. Despite or because of it, I find much value in revealing their work to the public as a witness to the deep roots of bias and its historic  perseverance. These points arouse true amazement and escalate the desperate necessity for this discussion.

SPECIAL THANKS TO  -
* My main partner in this project Prof. Artur Tajber,  Head of the Department of Intermedia, Faculty of Sculpture, Jan  Matejko`s Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.
* The Artists Zbigniew Warpechowski,  Arti Grabowski, Barbara Maron, Anna Syczewska – Grabowska.
* Ido Bar El, Head of Department of Fine Arts, Bezalel Academy of Fine Art and Design, Jerusalem.
* Teresa Smiechowska, Curater, Institute Adam Mickiewicz.
* The Ministry of  Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
* Liv Sperber, Director of International Relations, Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Jerusalem.
* To Idit Porat.