Draft:Art.espionage

• Comment: I have removed great swathes of text that either (a) came from a single, long page of the Haaretz website that's clearly marked as conventionally copyright or (b) was misdescribed as coming from there. (I assumed (a).)
  And I have deleted the versions of this draft that included that text.
  When editing a draft or article, you are told "By publishing changes, you agree to the Terms of Use [...]". Click on "Terms of Use", read it, and believe it.
  (And even if these rambling autobiographical statements weren't copyright, they'd be unsuitable for an encyclopedia article.) Hoary (talk) 23:54, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: I've deleted the revisions that DoubleGrazing identified as violating copyright.
  Wikipedia has little interest in what article subjects say about themselves. The wordy self-portraits that currently pad out this draft to an improbable length should not be abridged or summarized; they should be entirely removed. Hoary (talk) 22:28, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: I think that's all the copyvios removed now, but may need to check again.
  Requesting revdel. DoubleGrazing (talk) 19:09, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: There are several paragraphs entirely without referencing – where is all this information coming from?
  And while offline sources are acceptable, they must be cited in a clear and complete way, to enable the source to be located and verified.
  Also, close primary sources cannot be used to establish notability, or to support anything but entirely non-contentious statements. And Facebook is not a reliable source. DoubleGrazing (talk) 18:57, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

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art.espionage was an art group which operated in Israel and internationally from 2011 to 2015. It comprised six members, Daniel Shoshan, Amit Matalon, Keren Mor, Menashe Noy Lola Ben Alon and Sharon Yavo-Ayalon, each from a different creative field. Including visual art, acting, architecture, and design, art.espionage focused on the intersection of art and performance. Their collaborative efforts challenged the traditional notion of the individual artist working in solitude.

Ethos

In contrast to art.espionage, there was another group operating in Yiwu, China, known as the painting factory. This factory functioned hierarchically, with a master overseeing a group of artists, or rather, artisans. The working method of the painting factory resembled the practices of the Renaissance era, where art was often commissioned and created by artisans working in a factory-like setting. This approach stood in contrast to the Western concept of the creative act as an individualistic pursuit carried out by artists in their studios.

The act of working as a group within art.espionage subverted the conventional Western idea of the solitary artist. The mystique surrounding the creative process dissolved, as did the aura surrounding the singular artwork. However, the culmination of their collaborative efforts resulted in the creation of a new landscape through the installation of one thousand paintings. This new landscape, divided into arbitrary squares, aimed to avoid any ideological or political associations. It was neither a contentious nor a nationalistic portrayal but rather a Google-generated landscape devoid of historical significance. The Chinese painters involved in the project approached the task with little knowledge or attachment to the places depicted in the paintings.

The project of art.espionage presented a surprising twist. Through the process of disruption, disintegration, and demystification of the work process and the image itself, the viewer was confronted with the vast display of one thousand paintings. Walking along this collection, viewers experienced it as a new and distinct landscape, divorced from its original context.

art.espionage's project embodied a bold and desperate attempt to strip the Israeli landscape of its myths and preconceived notions. Simultaneously, it sought to challenge and dismantle the myths associated with the medium of painting itself. Both the landscape and the act of painting were treated as readymade products, continuously passed from hand to hand, and never taken for granted.

art.espionage's ephemeral presence in the art world between 2011 and 2015 left a lasting impact by pushing the boundaries of collaboration, challenging traditional artistic processes, and questioning the meaning and reception of art.

Projects

publiclibrary

publiclibrary installed in bus stations saw great success.

2013 Earth, Dizengoff Center, Tel Aviv

Earth was installed in Dizingof Center in a commercial space transformed into a gallery. 1,000 paintings of Israeli landscape were placed on the walls and in the middle of the space.

2013 Earth, Haifa Museum, 100 years to READY MADE

Earth 2013, showcasing 1000 images of Israeli landscapes painted by artists in China

NiGun2, 2012

A performance at the Haifa Art Museum. A sound installation consisting of 30 musicians dispersed throughout the museum exhibition halls.

The Bride A trilogy, 2012

A scene from The Bride Trilogy by art.espionage

8cube, 2012

An Installation exhibited at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art as part of the opening festivities for the 2012 art season.

8.0 Cube is an site-specific installation that contemplates the exchange between curatorial practices, artistic interventions, and real estate premium.

Selected as a winning proposal for the inauguration of Tel-Aviv Museum of Art’s new wing by Preston Scott Cohen in 2012, 8.0 Cube comprised of 8,000 cubes, producing a total volume of 8 m3.

The story behind this installation began with the call for artists generated by the Museum curatorial staff, in which artists were invited to submit artwork proposals with a maximum volume of 8 m3. As an iconic status, curatorial practices at the Museum have thus asked to instill an object with artistic value using real estate measurements of floor area and land acquisition.

The cubes in 8.0 Cube were each representative of one work from the historic poetry of Sha'al Iben Qadem, a Jewish scholar from Medieval Spain. Viewers were invited to purchase one cube out of the 8,000 “original works of art”, each one signed and numbered. At its end of life, 8.0 Cube was moved, acquired, and consumed by the museum visitors, who were invited to create words play with the cubes, to create their own word sentence combinations, and thus their own meaning of the poetry pieces by Iben Qadem, questioning the museum's role in meaning-making.

NiGun, 2012

NiGun, a sound installation performance at Jerusalem Museum of Art

Nigun is a sound installation that formed a one-time human sound instrument, which responded to the audience’s movement along the museum space, questioning the passive and active roles of people and politics.

The installation invited 60 acoustic instrument musicians, placed along the museum's spaces. Each musician was given identical music notes of a famous Israeli patriotic song, a personal floor "button,” and the instructions to follow this one simple rule: you may play only if one of the museum's visitors presses your floor button.

Members

Sharon Yavo-Ayalon

Currently, she has focused on mapping NYC social distancing stories through interactive maps that aggregate people’s stories about living in the city during the COVID-19 pandemic. The maps combine individual stories with big data and content analysis. In addition, to harness technology to elicit social change, she has developed a Digital Twin for Roosevelt Island with a focus on equity and social justice. The digital twin integrates a 3D that can be scrolled back into history or fast forward into a simulated future as the first step towards an Urban Displacement Simulator.

Her Ph.D. explored the linkage between urbanism and art and how local identity, spatial (in)justice, and social (ex-in)clusion are forged or deconstructed by artistic activity in cities. This research was awarded the President of Israel’s Grant for Scientific Excellence and Innovation. Her work has been published in leading international peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of Urban Design, City and Community, The Journal of Urban Affairs, and Cultural Sociology.

Menashe Noy

Menachem (Meni) Noi (born on August 7, 1959) is an Israeli actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film director. For more details, refer Menashe Noy.

Keren Mor

Keren Mor (born March 18, 1964)[1] is an Israeli actress and comedian, a recipient of two Israeli Theater Awards, the Golden Screen Award, and the Israeli Academy Television Award. For more details, refer Keren Mor.

Amit Matalon

Amit Matalon is an artist, architect and designer and the founder of AXA.LAB experimental art and architecture lab. He is a Basic Design & Curatorship teacher at The Faculty of Architecture, Technion, IIT, practicing Graphic and Brand Design as well as Exhibition planning. He is also the co-founder at Playground