Magasin III Jaffa Books series of meetings with artists will host the artist Maayan Alyakim with his artist book And a River Went Out of Eden and his Moon Calendar Prints series.

And a River Went Out of Eden, Elyakim’s artist book, a collaboration with graphic designer Michael Gordon, was published as part of his solo exhibition with the same name, which took place in 2018 at the the Schocken Library, Jerusalem. The book is a gesture to a series of books called “Schoken’s Library” that was published by the German Schocken publishing house between 1933-1938, edited by Dr. Morris (Moshe) Spitzer. The series published Jewish masterpieces from various periods, translated to German for the first time. All the books were designed in the same format, each of them in a different color. And a River Went Out of Eden was designed and produced by Michael Gordon, and printed in the format and stylistic spirit of the Schocken Library series. It includes the texts the Library by Maayan Elyakim, Strange Stones and Good Neighborhood by Jesse Lockard and Rotem Linial, documentation of the library and the exhibition, and a book version of the work Six First Plates.

Moon Calendar Prints are an edition of 48 prints presenting the moon phases for each day throughout 2022. The calendars are unique, made by screen printing on original works by Maayan Elyakim, created using marbling techniques on paper. The prints will be sold for a special price for the event.

Magasin III Jaffa Books series of meetings with artists will host the artist Youval Hai with his artist book Dust & Scratches.

Dust & Scratches, the title of Youval Hai’s first artist book, refers to a filter in Photoshop used to smooth out the dust and scratches that appear on scanned negatives. The book’s subtitle Tel-Aviv Yafo, Israel sets the location of the project, but also frames Hai’s gaze at the city. The day to day observations and urban anecdotes become under this title a sweet and sour joke, as it looks like the city is in a dire need of a dust & scratches filter itself.

The book consists of photographs taken in the last decade, using various formats of analog cameras. Hai intensively documents his life, family and friends, as intimate moments are laid out alongside photographs taken while wandering the streets of Tel-Aviv. There is a clear visual sequence leading the reader, which breaks and jumps with hidden images and folded-in photographs, together creating a complex read, referring to Hai’s position and gaze.

Session 1
On November 24, Lundahl & Seitl, Untold Garden, and a reference group gathered in the library of Magasin III. After the artists’ introductions to the work Garden of Ghost Flowers, which is under process, philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith gave a digital lecture from his home in Sydney. He explained his materialistic theory on how consciousness ­– defined as the ability to have a subjective or perceptible experience – occurs gradually in organisms; a process that gives rise to states where consciousness is in part present, in part absent.

If the basis for experience is a collection of slowly-evolving abilities that enable animals to sense events around them and adaptively respond, then we have to grapple with the fact that this toolkit has forms in animals with very simple nervous systems, in non-neural multicellular organisms (sponges, plants, fungi), and in unicellular life. Do those creatures, too, have tiny scraps of consciousness? The view seems to lead to a kind of radical inclusiveness. 
– Peter Godfrey-Smith, Gradualism and the Evolution of Experience, 2020

Program:
Introduction to the artwork under process: Lundahl & Seitl and Untold Garden Studio
With a lecture by Peter Godfrey-Smith
Closing with a Q&A and discussion

Lundahl & Seitl, formed in 2003. The immersive art of Lundahl & Seitl is a continuous research into the question of how we perceive reality and negotiate its various forms.  

It is a worldbuilding, anti-disciplinary practice of choreography, virtual reality, and architecture – radically repurposing the use of everyday technologies by local adaptation, collaboration, reciprocity, and trust. 

Their works and projects have been exhibited in museums and institutions such as the Gropius-Bau / Berliner Festspiele (DE), Tate Britain (UK), Royal Academy of Art (UK), 66th Avignon Festival (FR), Centre Pompidou-Metz (FR), 8th Momentum Biennale (NO), and the Kochi Muziris Biennale (IN). The duo is recipient of a number of awards including the STRP ACT Award 2021, Birgit Cullberg Scholarship, Montblanc Young Directors Award, the Edstrand Foundation Scholarship, and Sven Harry’s Art Prize. They have been Iaspis studio grant holders (1 October 2016 – 31 March 2017). In 2020, they were shortlisted for the Lumen Prize.

Untold Garden is an experiential art studio that explores and builds tools for participatory design and art installations, virtual sculptures, interactive performances, artificial ecologies, and organic social networks. They are based in London and Stockholm and work across the globe.

Peter Godfrey-Smith is a professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. His main research interests are in the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of mind. He also works on pragmatism (especially John Dewey), general philosophy of science, and some parts of metaphysics and epistemology. Godfrey-Smith has a Ph.D. in philosophy from UC San Diego and has previously taught at Stanford University; Australian National University; Harvard and CUNY Graduate Center.

He has written six books: Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature (Cambridge, 1996); Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Chicago, 2003); Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (Oxford, 2009), which won the 2010 Lakatos Award; Philosophy of Biology (Princeton, 2014); Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness (FSG, 2016); and Metazoa: Animal Life and the Both of the Mind (FSG and William Collins, 2020).

The painting Natten (The Night) was created by Tal R in 2019 specifically for Magasin III Jaffa, Tel Aviv. The painting was shown at Magasin III in Stockholm in 2021, together with six woodcuts.

On Saturday, December 4, Museum Director Tessa Praun had a talk with Tal R about his artistry and the topic of falling in relation to the subject matter of Natten (The Night).

After the talk, playwright and artist Dimen Abdulla gave a reading of a text with the act of falling as a starting point.
 
Listen to the talk with Tal R here or watch it as a video with a slideshow below.

Tal R (Rosenzweig) is a Copenhagen based artist working with painting, ceramics, and drawing, among others. He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Between 2005 and 2014, Tal R was a professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in Germany. Tal R’s artworks have previously been exhibited at Magasin III in the solo exhibition Old Confused (2009), as well as in the group exhibitions Thrice Upon a Time (2010), Museum Magasin 3 (2011/12), and The Drawing Room (2014).

Dimen Abdulla is a playwright and artist. She has worked on assignments for, among others, Stockholm City Theatre, Dramaten, Riksteatern, Folkteatern in Gävle, and Folkteatern in Gothenburg. Abdulla writes for both adults and children with the attitude that no topics or emotions are too complex for these target groups to absorb. In 2014, she made her debut with the monologue På alla fyra (On All Fours) at Stockholm City Theatre, which was also selected for the Scenkonstbiennalen 2015 in Malmö. The following year, the performance X debuted together with Erik Uddenberg and Farnaz Arbabi at Unga Klara. The acclaimed monologue K, inspired by Leila K’s life, was staged in 2018 at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in Stockholm. In 2015, she was also appointed as Sveriges Radio’s first in-house playwright for a year. Abdulla is educated at Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm.

“Morn came and went – and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light”

(Lord Byron, “Darkness”, 1816)

 24/24 – Soundtrack for Solar Mountains & Broken Hearts

Mastering by Harel Schreiber

24/24 – Adaya Godlevsky and Lior Ashkenazy

Magasin III Jaffa is pleased to invite you to listen and view the creation of the soundtrack of the exhibition, through the window of Magasin III Jaffa at 17 Yossi Ben Yossi Street (The event will take place outside the space). The soundtrack will be created and performed by the musicians Adaya Godlevsky and Lior Ashkenazy.
The event marks the eruption of Tambura Volcano in April 1815. Two musicians will perform alone in the exhibition space and utilize it as a sound box for 24:24 minutes, the duration of a complete cycle of the video work CRY, presented at Attoun’s exhibition.

20:00 – Adaya Godlevsky – Sound Drawing with Catastrophe Scenery, by Harp, Sound and Electronics
A musical improvisation contoured by the time and place of the exhibition, as merging and changing spaces.

20:30 – Lior Ashkenazy – The Consul’s Last Day / for Objects, Tapes and Electronics
Sound meditation in the exhibition space, while utilizing the space as the echoing crater of the volcano.

Adaya Godlevsky
An interdisciplinary artist, the harp is a key element in her work. Adaya ranges from performing classical music, experimental music, improvisation, singing, composing songs by poets and composing for the harp and other instruments. In addition, she performs and creates as a performance artist, actress and director and collaborates with artists from various fields. Her multidisciplinary activities are presented and performed on various stages, in Israel and around the world.

Lior Ashkenazy
A senior musician, especially in the experimental field.