Gil Goren: Blind Spot

Ink is a primary medium in the installation of multidisciplinary artist Gil Goren, guiding him through its black and gray hues on a journey into hidden realms. The gaze wanders between islands of painted paper reliefs, like pieces of landscape torn away, remnants of structures, and splinters of life scattered in all directions, coexisting in the space.

Goren's unique working process begins with folding, tearing, and creasing the paper, continuing with layered painting built through smearing and dripping, erasing and adding. Time plays a role in the construction of the images, which gradually take shape and coalesce into an experience that Goren calls "fake authenticity"—like a stage set in which "real" objects are embedded. Goren regards them as clues, forensic finds, evidence of a story whose plot remains unknown.

He does not seek continuity. His installation consists of segments and fragments of images, some drawn from his inner world, others from myths of the ancient Near East. Video projections weaving painted, animated, and filmed imagery together cast a faint light into the darkness, while simultaneously enhancing the aura of illusion and mystery.

At the heart of the installation is a sculpted paper replica of the Roaring Lion sculpture commemorating the battle of Tel Hai, a visual and conceptual expression of the myth of heroism surrounding Joseph Trumpeldor and his brothers-in-arms. Set above a mass grave, the monumental statue was carved in stone by Avraham Melnikov in 1934, drawing on the visual language of archaic Assyrian reliefs. Its head is tilted upward in a roar, and its entire form conveys power.

The lion sculpture, along with the inscription carved on the monument: "It is good to die for our country," has become a symbol of heroism and a formative collective ethos. By contrast, Goren's relief is distinguished by its fragility. In the video projected onto the pool beneath, it is reduced to a mere reflection, which becomes a vanishing shadow, perhaps even a blind spot.

Goren alludes to the myth of Narcissus, enamored of his own reflection in the water, but the lion does not look down at all. Blinded by power and pride, he cannot see what unfolds underneath.

Goren walks the thin line between heroism, sacrifice, and vulnerability. Against the roar, the unceasing trickle of black ink rain evokes a primal lament. At the far end of the space, an Assyrian lioness stands on a cliff, arrows in her flesh, gazing at the moon—a distant echo of the terror embodied in the spectacle of the royal lion hunt.

As a bereaved son, Goren challenges the Israeli mythologization and glorification of heroism and its symbols, proposing a critical reading of coexistence as a perpetual condition of existential friction in the Middle East.

In this setting, age-old myths, national memory, and personal experience stand side by side in constant tension, without ever converging to form a single narrative.

Anat Turbowitz and Shir Meller-Yamaguchi, Exhibition curators