Changing Perspectives at the Haifa Museum of Art

Excerpt: Another perception of landscape is proposed in Epoch of Space, the third exhibition on display. It relates to the Sublime – previously defined as the feelings of wonder and awe evoked by looking at, or exploring, the magnificence of Nature. As illustrated through the work of eight fine artists the meaning of this concept has altered completely. Nature is no longer conceived as something awesome and noble, but instead may well evoke feelings of anxiety or disquiet. Take Orit Hofshi‘s powerful woodcuts as an example. To some extent the scenes she creates recall ‘sublime’ views of mountains and water produced in the 19th century by German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich among others. But the young people Hofshi depicts, having attained the top of some mountain ridge, find that they are looking out into space, into nothingness. As for the mountain, the uneven blocks of wood that Hofshi has gorged out to form its body may be likened, with a little imagination, to structures that have been abandoned or destroyed.