Yuval Avital’s notebook created for the AtWork Tour “What comes first?” by Moleskine Foundation reconnects to the curatorial statement of Simon Njami, AtWork advisor. “What comes first?” has as a starting point for reflection the issue of the stance that each person has to take when faced with choices and the responsibility that follows. When we take the initiative, we automatically create our priority list. However, Avital’s work is linked to the contrast between the domain of becoming and that of being, cited by Aristotle: a primordial chaos of emotions and anthropomorphic figures that connect with each other and tell an ever new story depending on how you read it. It is a circular story, where the important thing is not where you start to see the work: each sequence can be an opening.
Avital’s notebook for “What comes first?” is a rebellion against the question itself, a reason that can be traced in the creative process from the creation of the work: the notebook was wet, then impregnated with ink, coffee, metallic ink, acrylic and pencils. Created from right to left, the eye sweeps through the work and loses its centrality. “What comes first?” The artist responds with his mind, the place from which everything is born. From it, the instinctive world of the artist originates, characterized by figures without dimension or definition. The mind sweeps and wanders, unable to stop at a single element. All this is reminiscent of a mise en abîme: the viewer is invited to create his own story inside the notebook.
Born in Jerusalem in 1977 and living in Milan, multimedia artist, composer and guitarist Yuval Avital develops his works in a variety of spaces, including public venues, industrial archaeological sites, theatres and museums, challenging the traditional crystallized categories that separate the arts. In his exhibitions, performances, immersive installations, total-operas, large-scale musical ‘rituals’, and concerts one can find dancers, contemporary music ensembles, masters of ancient cultures, recruited individuals or communities, multi-video projections, meditative tactile ambients, advanced technological instruments, archive materials, scientific data, Sound-Sculpture, painting and printed artworks.
Each of Avital’s artworks is a unique experiential, poetic and emotional microcosm with its own identity, fruit of a meticulous research carried out in a carefully coded language, confronting the reoccurring themes of archetype and structure; ancestral and currant global-era human condition; nature and hybridity; ritual and science.
Avital’s sound and visual artworks have been presented in museums, art foundations, venues and art events such as MANIFESTA Biennial, GAM – Torino, MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art Rome; OSTRALE Dresden Biennial, La Fabbrica del Cioccolato Foundation in Switzerland, Saint Antoine Church Istanbul, Marino Marini Museum in Florence; National Science and Technology Museum “Leonardo da Vinci” in Milan.
Visit Avital’s website here for the full bio on all works.
