Ayelet Zohar's Multilingual Calligraphies 1998-2015

• In Event: Amateurism and the Art of Calligraphy in Postwar Japan

Abstract

Calligraphy as a concept is a well-known practice in East-Asian cultures, which took many diversions over the centuries. Japanese hiragana calligraphy from the 9th century onwards is an important example of change and addition. Another is the 1950s, when many American artists, were influenced by zen writings to create.

My interest in calligraphy as a concept (rather than a practice), led me to work on multilingual calligraphies, using romaji (English/French), Chinese hanzi, Japanese kanji/kana, Hebrew and Arabic scripts. This calligraphy offers a new experience, of a postmodern, hybrid nature, conceptual rather than skillful use of the brush. I employ the medieval concept of palimpsest, a visual/material layered object of writing – an embodiment to the use of multilingual stratified scripts.

In my presentation I shall discuss three series: Sub consciousness Opens Like a Fan - a Hebrew poem written over fan paper, using Hebrew, English and kanji, executed in monochrome aesthetics - using ink, pen ink, charcoal, and graphite.

The second series, palimpsests, started from wall slogans written by Palestinian demonstrators, photographed and enlarged by Xerox machine, adding layers with Chinese, Japanese hiroha kana, English, French and Hebrew, with footprints of my three-years-old son.

The third series concerns my academic research is based on Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's becoming imperceptible as the content of my new works, written with brush and charcoal, establishing a link between intellectual and visual efforts.

Author

• Ayelet Zohar, Tel Aviv University