The art of touch
Exhibited at MMAE 720 2024, Berlin
"The beginning
of all art
is touch."
Sophie Albers Ben Chamo
This statement encapsulates the essence of artist Avi Albers Ben Chamo's work. The first installation, "Touch "1" was first introduced this year in the San Rocco Museum of contemporary art in Sicily. "Touch "1" invites viewers to step into a dimly lit room filled with naked primed fabrics that beckon to be touched. As visitors tentatively reach out, they are enveloped in layers of textures – smooth touch, rough touch, cold touch – each evoking a different emotional response. The room pulsates with a holy energy, as if the very walls are alive with the vibrations of human connection. "I was searching for a way to create a space where touch becomes the language of the soul, where words are unnecessary, and emotions speak out loud." Albers Ben Chamo In a society increasingly dominated by screens and virtual interactions, Touch serves as a poignant reminder of the power of human touch to bridge divides and forge connections. The climax of the installation comes when two strangers, hesitant at first, tentatively reach out and grasp each other's hands. In that fleeting instant, a spark ignites between them, a silent understanding that transcends words. It is a moment of pure vulnerability and trust, a testament to the transformative potential, a permission to touch and to be touched. As the viewer stands there, hands intertwined, bathed in the white canvas, it becomes clear that Chamo's touch is not just about sensation, it is about the profound higher beauty of human connection.
Avi Albers Ben Chamo's touch is a representation of spirituality, primal sensuality, and sensory experience that challenges traditional artistic norms. Through this innovative approach, Chamo invites viewers to engage in a transformative journey that transcends the physical realm and delves into the depths of human consciousness. By intertwining touch with spiritual and primal elements, "Touch" creates a unique sensory experience that resonates on a profound emotional level. Despite potential skepticism, Chamo's work serves as a testament to the enduring power of touch as a medium for artistic expression and self - discovery.
Kavanism
Exhibited at Fundbüro 2023, Berlin
Through the Kavanism the single interrupted line comes to represent the ''change'', the crack or the desire to detach from the course of the current stream of things to the point of creating a life of its own. This disengagement requires formidable forces since the current accepted line is heavy and stable and will wipe out and eliminate any attempt to resist or disengage from it. But the process of tectonic detachment from the old generation and its outdated ideas are inevitable, and sooner or later the new ideas are going to get a life of their own in the form of a counter line with a life and desires of their own. The black line on the wall for the viewer is meaningless, an aesthetic dawn line, it is like a gecko, but this line is charged with enormous energy that is interrupted by the beginning of a new independent pure direction.
Read the full interview on "Kavanism" Art [at] Berlin here
Over time, the artist learns that all the virtual ways for his personal progress and growth do not work. At best, he is forced to understand that his way to self- and spiritual growth is only through society and personal and human encounters.
Contemporary art is currently limited and dedicated to a dream in which the artist needs to improve his marketing skills more than what he creates for and for whom. The bookshelves are full of books that come to plan the artist to be a source for money and trade and not as a source of expression of the inner soul.
A work of art whose sole purpose is to be sold is meaningless. In "kavanism" or in any art form or "ism".
Fundbüro 2023, Berlin
