Born in 1986. Lives and works in Tel Aviv

New Israeli Shake, 2013, installation, mixed media

New Israeli Shake is Milly Barzellai’s idiosyncratic way of saying “enough with bad news!” Barzellai is tired of the gloominess that often characterizes the Israeli press and proposes through his artistic work a different reading alternative. This highly colorful work is comprised of cut up “Yediot Aharonot” newspapers which reveal the different layers of written content and images. Its emphasis is on the aesthetics of the journalistic medium, rather than the information it provides. Thanks to the artist’s intervention, the newspapers cease to be a mere tool for delivering information and become a subjective and personal work of art. The artist’s decision to either emphasize or to cut out sections of the papers altogether gives him the power to control the information he is receiving from the media.
The artist was inspired by his father in creating this work. An optimist by nature, his father likes to read the last pages of the newspaper first. He would rather concentrate on the things he likes best, like sports, instead of starting his day with the hard news filling the front page.