EXHIBITION “WITHOUT CAMOUFLAGE. “

HAPPENINGText: Fuyumi Saito

The area called Dogpatch in San Francisco, where used to be the area of warehouses are now locally famous for hip and artistic area. Craft & design factories, cafés, bakery and restaurants have been opened in these five years. After moving from downtown, Museum of Craft and Design matches better this area and become more characteristic and attractive.

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“Without Camouflage. Dafna Kaffeman. Sivlia Leveson”, The Museum of Craft and Design, 2015, Photo: Kurt Lundquist

The exhibition started from last September is titled as “Without Camouflage.” shows art works using glass combing various materials like fiber and chemical elements by two female artists, Dafna Kaffeman and Silvia Levenson. You will see their social and political messages lead from their past and personal experience in their works.

Icons appeared in their works, for example, wolf and lamb are metaphors. Those are camouflages of the truth, however, at the same time, the character of the glass material: its transparency tells us what it is, without camouflage.

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“Defeated (Wolf #1)”, Dafna Kaffeman, 2014, Photo: Shai Halevi

The first thing which caught your attention is 2 black wolves on the white wall. These are the series of “Defeated” by Kaffeman. Spikes of lampworked glass are adhered to aluminum with silicon to evoke the wolf’s tactile skins. Said by the artist to “represent man’s inner fears”, the Wolves also serve as metaphors for the numerous players in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

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“Tactual Stimulation”, Dafna Kaffeman, 2014

Compared to Wolves’ black and white, series called “Tactual Stimulation” are very colorful. With the theme: Human’s behavior, colorful, rotund forms like cacti or sea urchins juxtapose the thorns with additional materials like clay and sponge. Thick peel and thorns make it like a western pear in Israel. It could be a metaphor of Jewish born in Israel who looks tough but is very warm and welcoming people.

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“Invasive Plant”, Dafna Kaffeman, 2014

In addition to Wolves, Without Camouflage features Kaffeman’s most recent, multipart minimalistic environments, consisting of framed expanses of felt decorated with hand-embroidered Arabic and Hebrew texts that the artist often extracts from the media or public demonstrations, and which she counterbalances with spare lampworked glass flora and insects. These series have metaphors for the flux of populations and identities informing modern Israeli history.

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