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Shira Friedman
Well Being
In this exhibition, Gary Goldstein presents his concern with the written word and with
works created over the past three years, in books, while going beyond the genre of
which his biography plays an important role. “automatic writing” and turning to narrative
The ensemble of works reveals that Goldstein’s writing, which is concerned with memory
visual and written language has taken on and its validity in a personal, associative,
a somewhat freer quality; the remarkable confessional style: “The waves inundate and
density that sometimes characterized it in the drown me, stifling the air, my breath. I am
past has dissolved, and his series also include old. No longer a child. I am harrowed by the
blank pages and abstract fields of color in the waste, given the pain of that time. Every time
background. I remember – I cannot forget. I am gray. Made
of lead.” In the sound work created by the artist
A reading of the texts integrated into the Etty BenZaken, which is heard in the gallery
paintings introduces us to a childhood filled space, Goldstein’s words acquire an abstract
with sorrow, in a family where both parents dimension, as fragments of words severed
were Holocaust survivors reckoning with from their meaning.
memories of impossible suffering and the
ghosts of their loved ones. Goldstein writes The exhibition’s different Hebrew and
especially about his father, and the process of English titles point to the changes that
reconciliation that he has come to experience Goldstein underwent both during and after
in his regard, especially following the birth the painting process. The painterly action
of his grandchildren. He notes his own itself, and especially its repetitive nature,
manner of sitting while he paints – a pose contributes to his resilience and frees him of
that reminds him of his father, a tailor, bent distress, hence the title Well Being. Once the
over as he immersed himself in his works. painting is completed, Goldstein examines his
His father would take apart suits with the works in search of their emotional meaning–
same concentration that Goldstein discovered “deciphering” them in writing to explain their
in himself while disassembling books and psychic content, and repeatedly touching upon
taking apart their spines in preparation for his recurrent themes – flowers, portraits, knives –
paintings. as a means of exploring his own unconscious.
Subjects such as the whale, another recurrent
Goldstein’s works continue to explore
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