This Is Not My Tree
Eli Barak, A Rolling Stone, sculpture, video and live performance, 2015-2016
March 26 - April 16, 2021
Opening Reception: Friday, March 26th 4:30-8 pm
(Only with appointment)
Curated by Nina Mdivani
With works by Yael Azoulay, Eli Barak, Omer Ben-Zvi, Mosen Binnalee, Delano Dunn, Jan Dickey, Michal Geva, Jon Gomez, Lia Kim Farnsworth, Tamara Kvesitadze, Netta Laufer, Dana Levy, Pedro Mesa, and Mark Tribe.
NARS Foundation is pleased to present This Is Not My Tree. This exhibition is a reflection on themes of belonging, border, natural habitat, invasive species, and other strong emotional undercurrents, addressed by fourteen artists via their personal stories and their relationships with different landscapes. Does a tree change from a continent to a continent if the species remain the same? Why do we leave the space we were born to? How do you know that you fit in? These are the questions raised by presented works.
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In the framework of the exhibition, curator Nina Mdivani will moderate Virtual Discussion Panels with the exhibiting artists. Please not that this events are free, but require previous registration.
April 3rd, 2 pm: Connecting Migration to Ecosystem
With Eli Barak, Jan Dickey, Lia Kim Farnsworth, Netta Laufer, Pedro Mesa and Mark Tribe
April 10th, 2 pm: Notions of Belonging
With Yael Azoulay, Omer Ben-Zvi, Delano Dunn, Michal Geva, Jon Gomez and Tamara Kvesitadze
Nina Mdivani is Georgian-born and New York-based independent curator, writer and researcher. Her academic background includes International Relations and Gender Studies from Tbilisi State University, Mount Holyoke College and, most recently, Museum Studies from City University of New York. Nina's book, King is Female, published in October 2018 in Berlin by Wienand Verlag explores the lives of three Georgian women artists and is the first publication to investigate questions of the feminine identity in the context of the Eastern European historical, social, and cultural transformation of the last twenty years. Nina has contributed essays to several catalogues as well as regularly writes for outlets such as Arte Fuse, White Hot Magazine, Arte & Lusso, Eastern European Film Bulletin, Indigo Magazine, Art Spiel. As curator and writer Nina is interested in discovering hidden narratives within dominant cultures with focus on minorities and migrations. Her recent exhibitions include Rooms & Beings at 68 Projects, Berlin and New York Meets Tbilisi: Defining Otherness at Kunstraum and Assembly Room, New York City. Public Digital Art Platform in Moscow is another new initiative that Nina curates.
Artists Bios
Yael Azoulay (b.1984, Haifa, Israel), raised in Israel. Azoulay received a BEdFA from HaMidrasha School of Art in 2010. In 2016 she received an MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts. Since 2011 Azoulay participated in group exhibitions in Israel, Europe and the United States. She had her first solo exhibition in 2014 at Passage gallery, Tel Aviv. In 2015 she had a solo exhibition in The Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan. Azoulay lives and works in Haifa, Israel.
Eli Barak (b.1979, Kfar Yona, Israel), lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. Barak’s work is layered with history, culture, and politics. Through performance and installation, Barak embodies objects to investigate both individual and cultural identity. Utilizing social engagement, his work explores the idea of the artist as an agent addressing the issue of cultural assimilation. Barak has had solo exhibitions at YAA Museum (Florida) and Gallery 39 (Israel). He has participated in group shows including in Lincoln Center (NYC), Haifa Museum (Israel), Petach Tikva Museum (Israel), The Performance Biennale (Israel), Fresh-Paint Art fair (Israel), Satellite Art Fair (Florida), The Willows (NYC) and many others. He received an Excellence Award in Fine Arts from the “America-Israel Cultural Foundation”, a Merit Scholarship Award from SVA and a Fellowship Award from the Mildred’s Lane residency. His work is part of various collections both at home and abroad. He received his MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and BA in Fine Arts and Art Education from Hamidrasha School of Art in Israel; studied graphic design at New York University.
Omer Ben Zvi (b. 1984, Kibbutz Ein Harod, Israel). Lives and works in New York, NY. Holds an MFA (2018) from the New York University, Steinhardt MFA program in Studio Art; BFA (2015) from The Neri Bloomfield School of Design, Haifa, Israel; participated in a student exchange program in BTK University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany. Ben-Zvi exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Israel, Europe, and New York.
Mosen Binnalee (b. 1988,Saudi Arabia), has been creatively expressing himself from a young age, after high school he moved to the United Kingdom in 2007 to study law. During my U.K period, he saw art in a new light and it made his creative side flourish to a point that made him realize he wanted to pursue art. After defining my goals, He moved to the United Arab Emirates in 2013, which gave him the chance to become in close contact to a variety of international artists through his involvement with different art institutions, participate in shows, working as an artist assistant and enrolling for courses at the Sharjah art college. In 2014, he moved to New York City, U.S.A, where he obtained his Bachelor's in Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts. Currently, he is in a residency programme at cite international des arts, Paris, for one year.
Jan Dickey (b.1987, Bad Kreuznach, Germany) received an MFA from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 2017 and a BFA from the University of Delaware in 2009. He also completed a year of training in traditional draftsmanship and composition at the Academy of Classical Design (Southern Pines, NC). He was the recipient of the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center Residency Award in 2018, the Geraldine P. Clark Memorial Fellowship in 2016, the John Heidi Fellowship in 2015, and a North Carolina Regional Artist Project Grant in 2013. Jan has exhibited nationally throughout the United States and internationally in Tokyo, Japan. Recent artwork will be published in the forthcoming International Painting Annual 9 (Manifest Press).
Delano Dunn (b.1978, Los Angeles, USA). Through painting, mixed media, and collage, Dunn explores questions of racial identity and perception through various contexts, ranging from the personal to the political, and drawing from his experience growing up in South Central L.A. He has had solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, among others. In 2017 he was nominated for the prestigious United States Artists Fellowship and received the Sustainable Arts Foundation Individual Artist's Grant. He was the 2016 recipient of the College Art Association’s Visual Arts Graduate Fellowship. Group exhibitions include The Wassaic Project, ArtSpace in New Haven, Spring/Break Art Show, Project for Empty Space, PULSE New York, The Delaware Contemporary, La Bodega Gallery, and more. Dunn has been featured in The New York Times, VICE Media’s The Creators Project, and Hyperallergic, amongst others. Other awards include the Delaware Contemporary’s Curator’s Choice Award, and SVA’s Edward Zutrau Memorial Award and Alumni Thesis Scholarship Award. Residencies include The Wassaic Summer Artist Residency, Project for Empty Space in Newark, NJ, and SPACE at Ryder Farm. He is a Teaching Fellow at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two children.
Lia Kim Farnsworth (b.1986, Utah, USA) is a visual artist. Her work speaks to the ways we deal with the complicated notion of the end, using climate change as a metaphor for the ambiguous, impending end to what we understand as nature. She creates fictional future worlds that oscillate between real and imagined spaces through installation, video, photography, and performance. Farnsworth was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and was raised there as well as Seoul, South Korea. She has shown her work nationally and internationally. She received an MFA in New Forms from Pratt Institute in 2017. Farnsworth lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Michal Geva (b.1980, Kibbutz Ein-Shemer, Israel) is an Israeli artist, based in New York. She received her MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in May 2016. She attended the BFA program in Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 2003 and completed it in Beit Berrel School of Art “Hamidrasha” in Israel by 2008. She participated in the Fellowship program for young creators at "Alma Home for Hebrew Culture" during 2011-2013. Michal Geva exhibited in various group shows and art fairs in Israel and New York, among them: Pulse-Miami Art fair (2016) and Fresh-Paint Art fair (TLV 2010-13). Geva had several solo exhibitions : 39 Gallery (TLV, 2011) , Java Gallery (NYC, 2013) Minshar Gallery (TLV, 2013) Hanina Gallery (TLV,2014). She was awarded a Scholarship from “America-Israel Cultural Foundation” in 2008, and a Rabinovich foundation grant in 2013.
Jon Gomez, (b.1981, Los Angeles, USA) is a Mexican-American multimedia artist/educator and recent M.F.A. graduate from New York’s School for Visual Arts. His work focuses on phenomena linked to Mexican heritage through landscapes and objects that frame the evolution of immigration, identity, and nationalism in 21st-century America. In 2018, Jon was honored to show work in May Contain Moving Parts an exhibition curated El Museo del Barrio at The School of Visual Art’s Chelsea Gallery. He continues to teach nationally and internationally. Jon lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Tamara Kvesitadze (b. 1968 in Tbilisi, Georgia) creates work rooted as much in ancient culture and mythology as in surrealism. In her work violence and sexuality converge; faces, masks and fragmented bodies symbolize the inner turmoil of the modern individual, its feelings, its pursuit of happiness and fulfillment, its fears and hopes. Kvesitadze follows a deep emotional current within all her sculptures and installations. Significantly influenced by Giacometti, della Francesca as well as Arte Povera she combines latest technical possibilities with activating traditions of her own country, a coming together of East and West. She questions human individuality and the individual’s relation with its fellow human beings and the tension in the relationship between genders. She achieved international appeal through her work with kinetic sculptures, making movement the essence of her creativity. Tamara has exhibited internationally in art fairs, in solo exhibitions and group presentations, including the Venice Biennale in 2007 and 2011. Her work can be found in major public and private collections in France, USA, Germany, UK, Vietnam, China and Georgia. In 2018 Tamara Kvesitadze became one of the few international artists to have a virtual exhibition on Google Arts and Culture, an online platform featuring content from some of the world’s leading museums and archives. In 2019 she was profiled by the BBC World Service program “In the Studio”, which followed the process of creating the 18-meter kinetic outdoor public sculpture “Sigh” in Wuxi, China.
Netta Laufer, (b.1986, Israel), raised in both Jerusalem and New York. Nettla Laufer received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts,New York, NY (2016) and her BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, IL (2013). Her upcoming exhibitions are scheduled to be shown at NARS Foundation, New York, NY (2020) and at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, IT (2021). Netta Laufers’ photographs and video installations were shown worldwide at venues such as Wrocław Contemporary Museum, Wroclaw, PL (2020), Hybrid Art Fair, Madrid, ES (2020); Hansen House, Jerusalem, IL (2019); The Genia Schreiber Tel Aviv University Art Gallery, Tel Aviv, IL (2018); Jamestown Arts Center, Jamestown, RI (2018); Hanina Gallery, Tel Aviv, IL (2017); The Ruth Youth Wing, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, IL (2017); CCA - Center for Contemporary Art in collaboration with Fresh Paint Art Fair, Tel Aviv, IL (2017); PULSE Art Fair, Miami, FL (2016); Sleepcenter, New York, NY (2015); New York Art Book Fair, MoMA PS1, New York, NY (2015); Bloomfield Science Museum, Jerusalem, IL (2013) among others. Netta Laufer is a recipient of The SVA Alumni Scholarship Award and her works and writings were reviewed or published by leading magazines such as The Economist; Antennae: The Journal of Nature In Visual Culture; Hyperallergic; Musee Magazine; Spark Magazine; The Observer; Haaretz Newspaper and more.
Dana Levy (Tel Aviv, Israel) Dana Levy was born in Tel Aviv and Lives and works in New York. She was the 2019/2020 Freund Teaching Fellow at the Sam Fox School of Art in Washington University, St. Louis. She was the 2020 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Digital/Electronic Arts from The New York Foundation for the Arts . Other awards include the 2017 City of Budapest talent Award, and the 2013 the Beatrice Kolliner Award from the Israel Museum. Her solo exhibition Currents 119: Dana Levy at the Saint Louis Art Museum opened in February 2021, other solo exhibitions include at Fridman Gallery NYC (2019), The Israel Museum Jerusalem (2015), Petach Tikva Museum of Art (2014), Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv (2012), Nicelle Beauchene Gallery NYC (2010), and more. She has participated in group shows and screenings including at Videonale at the Kunstmuseum in Bonn (2021), C24 gallery NYC (2019) Screen City Biennal Stavanger (2018), Kadist Gallery San Francisco (2017), Johannes Vogt Gallery NYC (2016), Fridman Gallery NY (2015) Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena (2014), Wexner Center of Art (2012), The Bass Museum (2012), Tribeca Film Festival (2013), The Tel Aviv Museum (2016), Harn Museum of Art (2019), Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (2010), Tate London (2010), Invisible Exports NY (2010) and more. Residencies include AIRIE Everglades National Park, Wave Hill Workspace, LMCC Workspace, Art Omi, I-Park, and Triangle Arts Association NY, Ok Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria, and Museumsquartier, Vienna.
Pedro Mesa, (b.1989, Bogota, Colombia) is a Colombian-born multidisciplinary artist and writer currently living and working in New York. His work employs the tropes/binaries of presence and absence to explore notions of concealment in the construction of cultural identities. Mesa has exhibited his work at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá, the China Academy of Art CAA Museum in Hang Zhou, the HERE Art Center in New York, The Center for History, Memory, and Peace in Bogotá, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Bogotá, Creative Drive in New York, and more. His work has been featured in the Brooklyn Rail, TEDX, Behance, VICE, Journal of the Association of Colombian Studies, ArtNexus, Revista Arcadia, Periódico El Tiempo, El Espectador, amongst others. Residencies include “Life on an Island” at Governors Island, NY and “Residencias Itinerantes” in Casanare, Colombia. Mesa holds an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, a BFA in Fine Arts and a BA in Literature from the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. He is a faculty member at the BFA Fine Arts Department of the School of Visual Arts, NY.
Mark Tribe (b.1966, San Francisco, USA) is an artist whose recent work explores the relationship between landscape and technology. His drawings, photographs, installations, videos and performances are exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Momenta Art in New York; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston, Australia; and DiverseWorks in Houston. His work has also been shown at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris; the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; the Menil Collection in Houston; Centre Pompidou in Paris; the National Center for Contemporary Arts in Moscow; MUAC in Mexico City; SITE Santa Fe; the San Diego Museum of Art; Museo de Antioquia in Medellín; Blanton Museum of Art in Austin; Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah; Montclair Museum of Art in New Jersey; the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts; the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore; Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York; and Yossi Milo Gallery in New York. He has received grants from Creative Capital, the New York Foundation for the Arts, National Performance Network, ArtsLink, the Experimental Television Center and the Puffin Foundation. He is the author of two books, The Port Huron Project: Reenactments of New Left Protest Speeches (Charta, 2010) and New Media Art (Taschen, 2006), and numerous articles. His work has been reviewed or discussed in Artforum, Art in America, Artnews, Art Papers, the Boston Globe, the Brooklyn Rail, the Daily Beast, Die Welt, El Pais, Flash Art, Frieze, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Hyperallergic, the Los Angeles Times, Modern Painters, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Village Voice, and many other publications. Tribe has served as Chair of the MFA Fine Arts Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City since 2013. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor of Modern Culture and Media Studies at Brown University, Director of Art and Technology at the Columbia University School of the Arts, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Art and Artist in Residence at Williams College. In 1996, he founded Rhizome, an organization that supports the creation, presentation, preservation, and critique of emerging artistic practices that engage technology. He received an MFA in Visual Art from the University of California, San Diego (1994), and a BA in Visual Art from Brown University (1990).
