Three Balconies And a Door Works By Michal Nachmany
Three Balconies And a Door MANNY CANTOR CENTER, 197 EAST BROADWAY, LOWER EAST SIDE NYC SEP. – OCT. 2016
Every person and every object has a journey. Reimagining and repurposing found objects of daily life is a central theme of Michal Nachmany’s art. In this show, the artist created a collage of three immigrant communities - Chinese, Russian, and Jewish - each with its own expression of images and objects of daily lives, yet all connected with an artistic clothesline. Nachmany visited the Lower East Side often. Many times she came with her late father Shamai Zweigreich, who lived in Jerusalem since the 1930s but was born in Poland in the 1920. With the curious eyes of immigrants, they observed the vitality of the Lower East Side neighborhood, its historical buildings, legendary streets, and its diverse communities. At times, such visits transported them back to the colorful markets of Jerusalem, as they reflected on the journeys of immigrants and the journeys of the objects they collect and cherish. The artist’s technique of integrating mixed media and multi-layered collage creates new stories about the objects they feature. Collage is a rich medium to capture a sense of history. A ‘collage of memories’ evokes images of ragged edges, blurred pictures, textures, and layers. Nachmany sews together swatches of life through words, images, and colors. The desire to preserve old objects that once were important to us and yet to continue to move forward in a rapidly changing cultural and economic environment, is a universal conflict and challenge. In this exhibit Nachmany layers images and objects of daily life, and gives them new meanings while preserving the spirit of the old. Nachmany’s show was organized in two section: The Immigrant Experience and America The Beautiful.
MY LOWER EAST SIDE: ARTIST’S REFLECTION Many years ago when I came to New York, the Lower East Side was one of my favorite places to visit. I loved to see the diversity of the people who lived and worked there. I loved to go to the Israeli guy who sold nuts, to try the pickles, and to look for bargains. I remember finding old Israeli records from the 1960s, or visiting a Hebrew scribe. I remember being mesmerized by the sights and smells, and by the signs of the stores in English, Hebrew, Yiddish and Chinese. The neighborhood felt in my early visits, and still feels today, like a melting pot of new and old, languages, values and cultures. My father, living in Jerusalem but visited New York often, never missed an opportunity to buy undershirts on Orchard Street. Whenever I walk in this neighborhood I reflect, like so many others who live in the Lower East Side and elsewhere in New York City, that we are all immigrants who left one life but kept old memories while starting a new life.
ABOUT THE ARTIST Michal Nachmany is a self-taught artist and educator based in New York City. She was born in Jerusalem, Israel, in 1958, and moved to New York in the 1980s. She has a B.A. and M.A. from Hebrew University. One of the central themes of Nachmany’s work is that every person and every object has a journey. Her work focuses on the ways personal and cultural journeys are captured in memories and objects, with work that reimagines and repurposes found objects of daily life. As an immigrant from Israel to New York, she explores the journeys of people and their keepsakes from a personal perspective. Nachmany’s technique combines mixed media, including collage, printmaking, and sculptural installation, to sew together swatches of life through images, colors, and words. She uses collage as a medium to create new stories about the memories and histories evoked by the objects she uses in her work. In this way she juxtaposes themes of personal and cultural narrative, nostalgia, and repetition using memorabilia, legal contracts, letters, photo albums, matchbooks, postcards, and other found objects from daily life. By bringing together these different elements in new ways, she seeks to open up dialogues between the objects, as well as between the people who attend her shows. These artistic dialogues create a space for communities to come together to connect over works of art, and to share memories and observations.
As Nachmany has exhibited her work across different communities, she has observed that collecting objects and preserving memories from the past occurs in varied forms across many different cultures and communities. The act of collecting represents a universal desire to preserve fragments of the past through its physical manifestations, while continuing to move forward in a rapidly changing world with new stories and new keepsakes. The techniques of mixed-media and collage allow memories to be recreated and repurposed within a community, a family, or on an individual level. In her art, Nachmany explores this dichotomy by relating these objects through new forms that give these images and stories additional layers, recreated meanings, and new beginnings. Nachmany's work has been exhibited in solo shows in New York City and New York State. Her first international solo exhibit was on display in Taipei, Taiwan from November to December 2016. The artist next international show will be in Krakow, Poland in Spring, 2017. To learn about Michal Nachmany’s work, to connect with the artist, and to follow her journey: Website: MichalNachmanyArt.com / e-mail: Info@MichalNachmanyArt.com Instagram: @MzMotek / Facebook: Michal Nachmany Art