Judges’ reasoning
Bianca Eshel-Gershuni is an exceptional artist in the Israeli art field. Already at an early stage in her career, when she had made her brake through into the public awareness with intricate sculptures and installations in the 80s, it was evident that she was undermining distinct categories and strict rules. After her studies at art school, with an emphasis on abstract painting, she chose to operate in the discipline of jewelry design, despite the fact that she did not have any formal training, a choice that even back then testified to her characteristic tendency to transgress conventions as well as to a creative process receptive to stimuli and ideas. In the 70s Eshel Greshuni was a one of the pioneers of innovations and changes in traditional jewelry design: under her hands jewelry turned into elaborate body decoration, and later on – a miniature sculptural object. Her achievements in the international arena and acquisitions made by jewelry museums bear testament to the significant weight her innovations carry in the domain of contemporary jewelry.
Bianca Eshel-Gershuni did not hesitate to combine “high” and “low” in a manner that was almost sacrilege in those years: juxtapositions of gold with plastic, high-end materials alongside cheap and vulgar materials purchased at the market such as dolls, feathers and other ornaments. The expansion of the pieces into sculptures and installations marked her most significant achievement in blurring boundaries: between jewelry, defined as craft and artisanship to sculpture and fine art. In her attitude, as well as her style and the subject matters she addressed, Bianca Eshel-Gershuni was an indicator of processes which started to crystallize at the time, both in the Israeli art world and abroad: the interest in women’s art and in craft as one of the features of feminine art, the openness to art containing biographic aspects, a return to narrative, materiality, emotion, and of course media mixing and boundaries cross-over typical to Postmodern trends. These formed the background to her solo exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum in 1985, the show that put her on center stage.
Nevertheless, to a large extent Bianca Eshel-Gershuni remained an “outsider” artist. A series of historical exhibitions addressing the themes of gender and body had overlooked her, even though she had had a great influence on the generation of women artists who emerged in the 90s.
In the past decade attention was turned onto aspects of industriousness and craft in art, ornamentation, the extent of kitsch, and an overflowing emotional world, all of which have become the common practice of many of the younger generation of both male and female artists. There can be no doubt that Bianca Eshel-Gershuni had paved the way and facilitated the acceptance of these trends into Israeli art, which at the time worshiped the universal, rejected the personal, and preferred humble materials and intellectual texts to rich colors and emotional exposure.
As someone who does not toe the line, Bianca Eshel-Gershuni’s art also does not succumb with ease to feminist theories, which have gained entry to the Israeli art discourse ever since the 90s. Nevertheless, her repertoire of images, including the preoccupation with feminine sexuality, offers some of the first open expressions of these issues in art in Israel.
In appreciation and honor of all these, the judging committee has decided to present her with the lifetime achievement award for 2009.
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