ART Habens Maya Gelfman
ART Habens meets
Maya Gelfman
An interview by and
, curator
, curator
Hello and thank you for having me. Whenever a young student asks for my advice, I say that there are many ways to go about being a professional artist. The academy is definitely a well compressed route to theoretical and practical basis for art-making, but it ' s certainly not the only way. It ' s like a beehive, a structure full of variables and opportunities, that might prove to be dense and even messy at times. Each one takes this challenging experience differently. In that spirit, I must say that I ' ve learned a lot being a student but some invaluable lessons weren ' t written in the curriculum at all. They had to do with standing my ground and claiming my own voice. I used my time there to absorb and experiment as much as I could. Naturally that approach didn ' t always pay off, at least immediately. More than once, my experiments ended in grand disasters and getting harsh yet constructive criticism. But It was more important for me to create something meaningful and original than to be praised. I kept pushing myself beyond fear and gradually learned to be confident in my actions. When my final project( thesis), in which I created a massive installation that temporarily changed the architecture of our floor, was selected to exhibit at a huge expo and than directly lead to exhibiting at the TLV Museum of Art the following year, I knew my instincts were spoton and that my determination was rewarded.
Being an artist in Israel, well... Even though it ' s a small country it ' s a very fertile ground for creativity and inspiration. Due to the fact that it encompasses such extreme situations and heterogeneous people. It ' s a boiling cauldron in which history, cultures, ideals and conflicts are all evident and densely mixed together. It caters a fast current of transformations, geographically, architecturally and socially. In a way, this place always leaves you hungry. No matter how one might look at the situation, in a country that is exhausted by wars and busy
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