"Metamorphosis and metaphors. The abyss. And rising from it"

Ncontemporary Gallery, Milan.

Curated by Christian Oxenius

Reuven Israel | Panos Tsagaris

October 17 - December 22  2023


Every exhibition is a small fragment of the world we explore, in this case what you see is akin to a map of conversations and dialogues which have shaped the better part of three years. Intentionally, I start this text with something of a metaphor, that “akin to a map” certainly won’t satisfy the more acute observer. There is nothing “like” a map in this assemblage of gestures and objects, there is nothing “like” a snake in the sinuous forms you face in some of the works in front of you, neither anything “like” a spiritual trajectory crystalised in the form of objects. What there is instead is the immediacy of the works produced by the two artists, Reuven Israel and Panos Tsagkaris, the physical form these objects take and their capacity to affect the space around them. I say so to point to the importance these have in transmitting to us fragments, individual instances of change, which have taken place over the course of our dialogues leading up to this exhibition.

The works you are surrounded by are testimony to our constant change, our constant state of transformation and our striding towards a higher status of knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The dual title of this exhibition is, in of itself, a testimony to the passing of time and our mutual growth resulting from the continuous dialogue and exchange which has taken place between the two artists and myself. Indeed, its first part, a reference to “Kafka. Towards a minor literature” which has guided some of our earliest discussion, brings up questions of aesthetical references and cultural translation we face when living in a condition of being part of a minority.

In particular, what we did question at length in our discussion is how the notion of minority holds up in today’s increasingly atomised world. The intention here is of course not to undermine the notion of a collective minority in a traditional sense, especially considering the current reactionary backlash taking place across the world by political movements trying to hijack these terms from a supremacist position. Rather, what concerned us was to reflect on how the concept of minority, could help discussing and problematizing our own being in the world, the way we form and relate to a sense of tradition and belonging especially if we see it in a constant flux. Relating here the full extent of our reflections on this topic would certainly prove too much of a departure from the topic of this writing and indeed of the exhibition, but certainly the key elements elucidated by Deleuze and Guattari about the condition of producing “minor literature” and for the sake of brevity here let’s just extend it to cultural production in broader terms, did guide us in the knowledge of each other and reframing of the work we do.

I will just briefly mention the four main features of “minor literature” they recognized in Kafka’s work which we found reverberating with our own trajectory: works of minor literature are deterritorialized – they tend to incorporate a language other than their own in order to “be heard” but in doing so these modify the “original language”; by default these acts incorporate a form of “political resistance” towards the “main culture”; works from individuals of a given minority are immediately associated with a collective voice of this minority; and lastly works created within this framework tend to challenge established boundaries and norms within the prevalent cultural landscape. 

Christian Oxenius