Inception | Ghiora Aharoni

Work by Aharoni is currently on view at the Textile Museum in Washington D.C. and was recently showcased at New York’s Rubin Museum and Morgan Library.
The Israeli-born American artist who is represented in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Morgan Library & Museum; Centre Pompidou; Musei Vaticani; and the National Gallery of Art Washington D.C. presents sculpture mixed-media installations and photography that delves deeply into cross-cultural dialogue. “The idea that we are all connected that the fabric of humanity is inherently interwoven is a theme that runs through much of my work” says Aharoni. Assemblage sculptures from The Genesis Series are the focus of Inception. These intricate works incorporate iconography and text referencing scientific spiritual mystical and cultural beliefs surrounding creation narratives.

Aharoni began The Genesis Series in 2008 conceiving it as a dialog between science and religion. For many the story of Genesis the Bible’s account of Earth’s creation in seven days marks the beginning of the world and in essence of time itself. In contrast theories of evolution which arose during the nineteenth century chronicle a history that began billions of years before humanity’s existence.
Rather than focus on the dichotomy of these seemingly opposing views Aharoni interweaves a multiplicity of belief systems in The Genesis Series. Incorporating antique and vintage religious artifacts laboratory equipment and elements from the natural world each illuminated sculpture becomes a self-contained symbolic universe exploring the fluidity of time and how diverse narratives coalesce and intersect. Individual sculptures from the series have been exhibited in museums and cultural institutions internationally however this is the first time seven works from The Genesis Series—one for each day of creation—will be shown together.

Also on view in Inception are equally intricate works from corresponding series in which Aharoni expands his explorations into the fluidity of beginnings and the interconnectedness of cultural narratives: Enuma Elish The Immanent Transcendental and The Moses Cup. Pictured above is a work from The Moses Cup Series an assemblage of hand-blown glass engraved in 23-karat gold with sacred text in Aramaic and a gilded rhyton (ancient drinking vessel).
The Moses Cup Series references the Israelites’ seemingly unorthodox relationship with the Golden Calf. When Moses bids the Israelites to drink ground gold (the remnants of the calf he destroyed) mixed with water just how the Israelites drank it is never described. Aharoni’s sculpture responds to that metaphysical void expressing the transcendent energy evoked by an absent icon historical monument or house of worship either disappeared or imagined.