Tel Avivian by birth, and breeding, Lior Modan lives and works in New York City. With a new solo show, 'Wild Rice', he's coming home for his first comprehensive showing in Israel, at Tel Aviv's ex-tahini factory-turned-gallery Contemporary by Golconda.
'As a contemporary artist who is also an immigrant, I am always hovering over a place of non-belonging like an astronaut', said Modan. In this latest show, the works, enigmatic and surprising, find their own worthy sense of place as large-scale deliveries. Often hard to define, the work, according to Modan, is a 'Compost Concert' – presenting various attempts to form a bridge between the image and the painted surface. 'I feel that the works share a physical instability that keep them morphing as you spend more time with them,' he explains.
In Sweat the W, a frozen, ginger mattress leaves its mark inside a rosy, summery painting. Lugete Veneres poses a quote from Ezra Pound’s Hellenistic poetry on canvas with a sample of families of penguins, Marc Jacobs design, torches and even pipes. As for Blue Velvet, dancers revolve over the artist’s face with a surprising mountain view. 'I appreciate,' Modan explains, 'that odd characteristic of artworks constantly changing in their search for a new audience.'
’Wild Rice’ opens later this month at Contemporary by Golconda - an atmospheric, converted tahini factory. Pictured: Blue Velvet, 2015
The works share a physical instability that reflects the artist’s astronaut-like feelings of ’non-belonging’. Pictured: Domestic Prints, 2013
Lugete Veneres (Cry Cupids), takes its name from a number of different poems, including ’Ladies’ by Ezra Pound and Lord Byron’s ’Translation from Catullus: Lugete Veneres Cupidinesque’
The works express the quality of searching for an audience and a home, as nodded towards in this piece, No Forgiveness For the Bad Detective, 2015
INFORMATION
’Wild Rice’ is on view from 24 December. For more information, visit Contemporary by Golconda’s website
ADDRESS
Contemporary by Golconda
Herzl Sreet 117
Tel Aviv-Yafo, 66555
-
Joel Quayson’s winning work for Dior Beauty at Arles considers the theme ‘Face-to-Face’ – watch it hereQuayson, who has won the 2025 Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents at Arles, imbues his winning work with a raw intimacy
-
Architect Erin Besler is reframing the American tradition of barn raisingAt Art Omi sculpture and architecture park, NY, Besler turns barn raising into an inclusive project that challenges conventional notions of architecture
-
Boathouse Zaka is the radical renovation of an ageing structure into a light-filled workspaceOFIS Architects turns a traditional boathouse into a lakeside laboratory on one of Slovenia’s best-loved bodies of water
-
White city: the remarkable history of Bauhaus in Tel Aviv -
Poster politics: David Tartakover plasters the walls of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art -
Auto-biography: Elmgreen & Dragset present ’Powerless Structures’ in Tel Aviv -
Ron Gilad takes us on a tour of his new show at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art -
Highlights from Tel Aviv Art Weekend
