​Tsibi Geva has been selected to present Archeology of the Present in the Israeli Pavilion at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia. Geva, who lives and works in Tel Aviv, is one of Israel’s most prominent and influential artists and has exhibited extensively in major exhibitions across Israel, the USA, and Europe. Geva works in diverse media, his work often pushing beyond its physical limits into unique large-scale, site-specific installations.

Archeology of the Present will extend over the exterior of the pavilion as well as through its interior, destabilizing familiar divisions between inside and outside, functional and the representational, high and low, abandoned, found, and manipulated elements. It will encompass formal and thematic elements characteristic of Geva’s work throughout his career and will present paintings alongside sculptural installations and abandoned and manipulated objects, abolishing hierarchical distinctions between artistic mediums and structures. In doing so, the project will give expression to Geva’s ongoing concern with elements related to the notion of ‘home’ – including terrazzo tiles, windows, shutters, lattices, and cement blocks; elements which exist as fragments of what once was, or could in principle constitute, a home. The project will raise self-reflexive artistic concerns and epistemological questions, as well as political and cultural questions of locality and immigration, hybrid identity, existential anxiety and existence in an age of instability.

Click here for more information

Click here for videos