"A woman is not born a woman, she becomes a woman"- a famous quote by Simone de Beauvoir, one of the most significant feminist philosophers from the mid 20th century; it seems, from a modern perspective, that the idea of "becoming a woman" did not include or expect the gap and distortion that exists today in the female ideal, enhanced by men and woman.
Men, who haven't lost the prestige of their gender- defined by power, strength and size - began to appropriate "feminine" elements which were formulated by aesthetic terms of beauty and gentility. This process led women, possible victims or collaborators, to push the feminine ideal to its limit, in order to subdue themselves to the male-female dichotomy.
The demolition of the feminine myth, as a social process, characterized De- Beauvoir's era; afterwards, it seems the topic became relative and negotiable. The discourse regarding a woman as a subject matter, an ideal, became irrelevant and despite the fact it has been diverted onto other matters, it left the ongoing distortion without a significant change.
The exhibition "Hard Pop" wishes to shed a light on the ideal of beauty, as a representative of the female archetype, from the point of view of 3 young female artists- Liat Elbeling, VanillaRoyal, Rachel Monosov- who express their voice with precise aesthetic gentility.
Liat Elbeling- a graduate photographer from the Minshar School of Arts, and the winner of the Constantiner Photography Award 2011, is exhibiting a body of new work in which she creates new flowers by crossbreeding different types of flowers, using hot glue and photographing them in an accurate aesthetic environment. The result, reminds the viewers of a Photoshop intervention. This process, that combines new born beauty with immediate death, raises questions of Vanitas
Rachel Monosov- a graduate photographer from the Bezalel Academy of Arts, invited several blond women to her studio, trying to create the ultimate blond woman, by crossbreeding them. Monosov's body of work, full of humor and an exaggerated use of photoshop, uses a fashion magazine aesthetics. It interacts with a life-size statue of the artist itself, also exhibited in the space- a half rabbit half woman, with carrot juice running through a hoze, connecting her mouth to her buttocks.
Vanilla Royal- a multimedia artist, studied in the Midrasha School of arts, creates virtual images full of hostile sweetness and extinguished violence, which she translates into large paintings and statues. This act, opposite by its nature to the Photoshop retouching process, seems to enhance it.
Curator: Liora Belford