Shaping Thought Motti Mizrachi

Motti Mizrachi has produced several installations and objects that are similar to the work entitled Shaping Thought, in which the items he utilises are arranged according to a rational, geoetric system, which lends a decisive visual-abstract quality to the simplicity of the everyday items, bringing their material characteristics and surface effects to the fore. For the artist, who has been physically disabled since childhood, the experience of constant pain, healing, transformation and self-irony all serve as particularly important sources of inspiration. The shocking or banal items that characterise his object art, removed from their normal context and often enlarged beyond their customary size, offer emphatic reflections on the fragility of the human body and on physical pain. His works often evoke associations of violence and aggression, while simultaneously containing the possibility of relief or release. Nevertheless, in Shaping Thought, the interpretation of the enlarged filing tools as a means of “shaping thought” cannot be separated from the social and political interest that plays such a prominent role in the Israeli artist’s work. In this piece, the metal files are accompanied by variants of the dumbbell-like object that appears in his œuvre in varying sizes and contexts.

Dominika Sodics