Israeli artist adopts classical motifs to frame contemporary trauma in new exhibit |
An Israel Museum exhibit that opened shortly before the onset of the ongoing war with Iran underlines how Israeli artists have long been working through trauma.
“Yudith Levin: Break of Dawn” opens by showing visitors that Levin was 7 years old when her older brother was killed in a military plane crash in 1956.
Aviation, mourning, and trauma all became themes in Levin’s work, as shown in this solo exhibit, which runs through July.
The exhibit begins with “Wings,” a set of photographs created by the now 77-year-old Levin in 1974, as she posed under the wings of a grounded fighter jet, channeling her brother, which is hung next to one of Levin’s 2025 paintings, titled “Airplane.”
“There’s 50 years between these two pieces,” said curator Amitai Mendelsohn.
The exhibit moves into Levin’s 1970s-era installations, “The Annunciation,” “Pieta,” and others, made from plywood, found pieces and painted wooden slats that often include a blank painted wall.
They are works inspired by the mythological motifs of Icarus and Daedalus — the craftsman father who made wings of feathers and wax for his son that melted when he flew too close to the sun — and Prometheus, who stole fire from Olympus — and the Christian motifs of “Pieta,” Michaelangelo’s sculpture of Jesus........