The upcoming exhibition has adopted the gallery’s name, Beita, an Aramaic word, meaning “home.” It draws on the name to express the features of the home depicted in the gallery. Since Beita is the host, the exhibition expresses the desire to view its place of accommodation as a home, a place of lodging, and where it is comfortable speaking the “home-language.”
Home language
An earthquake
At times it rattles
Like a
Tin box
And at times it is
But a gentle presence
[…]
Avoth Yeshurun
The home is one of the central motifs in Israeli culture and art, to the extent that the history of local art can be conveyed in relation to the home and the various perceptions of the home portrayed throughout time: the Temple and the Temple Mount, a National Homeland and a private dwelling, an old home and a new home, an inhabited, bustling home and one that has been abandoned, a permanent place of residence and a temporary abode, a dynamic home that still stands and a home left in ruins, a home exuding harmony and reconciliation and a home emanating threat, a physical home and a spiritual home.
The current exhibition does not trace the origins of the home motif nor its meaning. It’s intention, however, is to reveal those moments of home in the gallery and to showcase elements in its complex and intricate home language. In Yeshurun’s poem, the home language convulses like earth tremors and resonates as loud as an earthquake, like a “tin box.” Yet there are times when the language imparts sensitivity and bears “a gentle presence.” Indeed, the demeanor of the exhibition is gentle: it fades away or retreats, it transmits an air of submergence or avoidance, and seems to be constantly offering soft hints or whispering. However, it takes on a secondary approach too, which is the ground that produces the piercing roars, the shuddering vibrations, and the exposed tension and imbalance, which are bound to the home, and in relation to the home.
