On the Wall: Assaf Evron

Artist talk & reception:
Thursday, June 1, 2017, 7pm

T 401 865 2400
pcgalleries@providence.edu

Hours: Wednesday–Saturday, 12–6pm
 

On the Wall: Assaf Evron is the third installment in PC–G’s On the Wall program, an annual commission of immersive artworks applied directly to the walls of the gallery. It is presented as part of an interdisciplinary initiative at the College to explore rich traditions and develop new scholarship around the mural as conceptual art form.

In celebration of its centennial year, Providence College, in collaboration Bridgewater State University, acquired a collection of late 19th and early 20th century documentary images from the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem. Using the École biblique images of the Holy City and Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif in Jerusalem as inspiration, artist Assaf Evron creates a photo-collage architecture on the gallery walls composed of two-dimensional geometric shapes and patterns cut from wallpaper printed with the artist’s one-to-one, polychromatic photographs of Zekediah’s Cave, a limestone quarry just beneath the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Evron’s compositions simultaneously allude to the layered structures and histories of Jerusalem’s natural and build environments, including the Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif, the legendary Damascus and Herod’s gates, and the Modernist modularity of post-WWII architecture. With this complex series of visual analogies between the ancient-to-modern hybridity of the greater region, On the Wall: Assaf Evron charts recurring forms and themes across a multitude of overlapping historical, cultural, and political narratives.

About the Artist
Assaf Evron (b. 1977) is an artist living and working in Tel Aviv and Chicago. Evron’s recent solo and two-person shows have been exhibited at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Andrew Rafacz Gallery in Chicago and Andrea Meislin Gallery in New York. Recent commissions include projects for the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Israeli Pavilion at the 12th Venice Architecture Biennale, and the reinvention of the Dov Karmi Exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. He was awarded the Gerard Levy Prize by the Israel Museum in 2012, and the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Education Prize for Young Artists in 2010.

About PC–G
Providence College Galleries (PC–G), with the support of the Department of Art & Art History at Providence College, presents exhibitions and public programs focusing on contemporary art, innovative artistic practice and interdisciplinary cultural activity. Operating within two gallery spaces and across Providence College’s campus, PC–G supports the educational, service and community-oriented mission of the College with dynamic visual arts productions, including those that foster audience participation, cross-departmental collaboration at the College, and cultural exchange at local, national and international levels. PC–G ultimately strives to produce projects by artists and intellectuals who demonstrate how and why creative practitioners are vital forces in promoting diversity and shaping contemporary global culture.

On the Wall: Assaf Evron is curated by PC–G Director and Curator Jamilee Lacy with assistance from Dr. Joan Branham (Professor of Art History and Associate Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences at Providence College) and Dr. Beatrice St. Laurent (Professor of Art History at Bridgewater State University).

The exhibition is made possible with lead support provided by The Artis Grant Program. Additional supporters include The Centennial Committee and School of Arts & Sciences at Providence College, The Department of Art & Art History, The Office of the Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and The Provost’s Office at Bridgewater State University, The Service Bureau at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and LexJet Inkjet Printing & Supplies.

*Image above: Untitled (Digital Collage Study), 2016. Courtesy the artist. (2) Félix Bonfils, Détail de la chaire d’Omar, 1870–80. Courtesy Providence College Collections and the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem. (3) Assaf Evron, Untitled (Digital Collage Study), 2017. Courtesy the artist. (4) Father Antoine Jaussen, Untitled (Exterior wall of the Dome of the Rock, 1924–25. Courtesy Providence College Collections and the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem.