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Exhibitions - Expositions
Solo exhibitions
2010 - “Screen”, Office in Tel Aviv Gallery, Tel Aviv
2008 - 2009 Permanent exhibition in Dufour Gallery, Jerusalem
2008 - “Elevation”, Iranian Gallery, Jerusalem
2007 - 'The Art of Life', The New Gallery, Jerusalem
Group exhibitions
2011 - “Walter Benjamine’s Phantasmagoria”, Kaleidoskop Artforum, Berlin
2009 - "A Way From No Way’, Opera Gallery, Soho, NYC
2008 - "Surface Fractures’, Artists House, Jerusalem
2008 - "The Bottom Line’, Daila Saloon, Jerusalem
2008 - "From Punk to Pink’, Moty Hason Gallery, NYC
2008 - "Sublime, Now’, Hannina Gallery, Jaffa
2008 - "Mega-style’, Hakita Gallery, Tel Aviv
2007 - "Damka’, Zik Gallery, Jerusalem
2007 - "Secret Art’, Mannie House, Tel Aviv
2007 - "Desert Generation’, Artist’s House, Jerusalem
2007 - "Rashomon’ - Key College Gallery, Be’er Sheva
The New Gallery, Jerusalem
2006 - "Teddy Bears’, Teddy stadium, Jerusalem
2006 - Uganda, Jerusalem
2004 - Jerusalem Cinemateque
2004 - "Tunnel’ art event, Jerusalem
2003 - Art fair, Feingold Court, Jerusalem
2003 - "He’ara 6’, David Citadel Museum, Jerusalem
2002 - "He’ara 4’, Underground Prisoners Museum, Jerusalem
2002 - Final Exhibition, graduate program, Bezalel Academy of Arts, Jerusalem
Curation
2007 - "Rashomon’ - Key College Gallery, Be’er Sheva
The New Gallery, Jerusalem
2008 - “Elevation”, Iranian Gallery, Jerusalem
Roee Suffrin exhibition Tel Aviv Gallery (march-april 2010)
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A magnificent exhibition opened at the "Office in Tel Aviv Gallery" (Galeria Misrad be Tel Aviv), devoted entirely to the work of Roee Suffrin. A multitude of paintings, remarkably presented. Yet they only represented a small part of this artist’s talent, for the gallery’s director focused solely on themes which followed the lines of conceptual art.
It was an interesting choice in order to discover all the possibilities in this field.
Art lovers will have to wait for another opportunity to discover the other side of Roee Suffrin, so that he does not remain one dimensional. Suffrin ’s online exhibitions compensate for this lack but they do not enab- |
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le face-to-face contact with his works. Israelis have the right to another, indispensable exhibition.
Having said this, the reaction of many visitors in front of his paintings and the encounter with them was revealing. It was a far cry from the usual gallery openings where visitors pass quickly by works and seek more to chat with personalities or acquaintances or make themselves seen. Here, the art lovers stood for a long time in front of each painting, engaged in a deep, silent personal dialogue. I was struck by this and I captured this intimate dialogue in photographs. |
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This tells us a lot about Roee Suffrin’s work. As I have already indicated, Suffrin speaks to those who have eyes directed outwards and inwards, to the past, the present and the future; he speaks immediately to those who do not repeat, parrot fashion, what they learnt about art techniques, in one word, he creates art and creators of art are happy with this encounter.
Too often, one sees in students coming out of leading academies of art, or even in talented, constant repetitions of the same era or school. Nothing individual, nothing creative. This is well known, period. As Nicholas Chamfort said in the 18th century: “most of the books of today seem to have been created in one day with the books read the night before.”
Roee Suffrin belongs the Chamfort school which says: “What I learnt, I no longer know; the little I still know, I guessed.” And regarding quality choices, he added: “I prefer honor to honors.” He won, and always will.
The encounter of the visitors with Suffrin’s paintings place the spectators at the same level of quality, irrespective of the theme or specific technique he uses for a painting. It is this which inspires in these visitors the long, solitary journey. Nothing social.
In contrast, I recalled many openings where professors of art or art critics lectured on technical concepts in order to impress an audience who had come for something altogether different. And these biting words of Woody Allen by came to mind: “he made a fundamental difference between existence and essence, certain that one was preferable to the other, but could never recall which it was!”
Here, the atmosphere was unsophisticated, direct and warm: each person was calm and content, capable of dialoguing with a painting or with the painter. It was an experience which taught me a lot about Suffrin’s creative genius, far from the traditions of which Allen said: “tradition is the illusion of permanence.”
Here, the selective choice of the paintings played no part and did not falsify the true discovery of the artist, for the real artistic question does not involve a classification of works as in a department store. In the words of Anton Chekhov: “There is nothing new in art except talent.” With Suffrin’s paintings, art lovers immediately discover who they are themselves: artists, creators like life itself. And the paintings enter in a relationship with themselves, in their inner artistic life.
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“In each painting, irrespective of the subject placed on the canvas,
Roee Suffrin interrogates us and poses questions to which mankind,
with its seemingly fast development, has not yet given clear answers, or clearly honest answers, or even clearly happy answers.
And yet there floats in his canvases the diffuse, present light of joie de vivre.
And no one needs to be familiar with erudite books on the history of art
in order to be caught up by the wonderful mirror he presents to us
with simplicity and beauty.”
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