Mademoiselle

Ronit Yanizki’s “Mademoiselle” exhibition will present a body of work from the past year using a special technique she has developed, will open at the Arts Studio Gallery in Kibbutz Givat Hashlosha, on Saturday, March 8, 2014, between the hours of 12:00 to 5 pm. This exhibition is held as part of the International Women's Day. The exhibition will be open until Saturday, March 22, 2014.

"In her new series of works, Ronit Yanizki offers a new perspective on the concept of solidarity - in this case, female solidarity. While history often undermines this concept, and deals in terms of male solidarity with a unilateral and discriminatory point of view of the relationships between women, Yanizki describes in her works her point of view regarding these relationships: “vibrant, full of life and passion", wrote Tally Amitai Tabib about her work. 

In her new works, Yanizki uses old photographs of women taken by men, often in erotic poses, in order to stimulate other men. She builds around them, using configurations that usually represent the female toil, a sort of defensive wall: collecting and pasting different materials, endless repetition of color patterns, with decorations that repeat themselves uniformly, creating areas with ornate motifs. In this manner, Yanizki completely changes the original intention of the photographs and gives them a feminine, supportive and empowering surrounding that does not discriminate between eroticism and friendship. The contrast between the monochromatic image and the colorfulness of its surrounding turns the act of exploitation and oppression into a corrective and enriching experience.

The photographs chosen by Yanizki are the subject for her work was gathered by her from the Internet. These are photographs take in the early 20th century by different photographers, when their purpose was to ridicule the objects in the photographs and mock them. In the way she treats these photographs, Yanizki provides a “correction” to those women by "implanting" them in a supportive, colorful and happy landscape, giving them a cheerful and exuberant look, “thus giving them legitimacy”, in her words.

This is Ronit Yanizki’s tenth solo exhibit. She also participated in numerous group exhibits concerning feminist projects in Israel and in the United States.