Toony Navok: origins, at noga gallery tel aviv

First off, this is just a fun show to visit, not in the light fun of eating popcorn, but in a refreshing profound fun of seeing something intriguing.  Origins for me is totally foreign and familiar at the same time.  Familiar because of the mediums used.  Cleaning supplies, hoses, plastic, nice pastels and other colors; foreign because at first I have no idea what is going on, yet I immediately trust Toony Navok.

In dusty Tel Aviv, and in fact in the dusty Levant, nothing is more sacred than a clean floor, a clean house, a clean environment, something distant from the street.  We were all raised on storied of the Yekkim, the German immigrants who washed the floor twice a day.  Toony Navok takes to a new level and forms her own lexicon, one that is deeply imbedded in modernism and its discontents.  Nahum Tevet, Isa Genzken, even Imi Knoebel come to mind as a sort of base or a launching pad for the show.

Whats great is that nothing really seem to work, the hose doesn’t work, nothing is being cleaned, the materials that are so “known” have become a part of something bigger than themselves.  And again, this is the great thing about Origins, the purpose of “things” has been “drained” out and re-invented to be used as, well, nothing!

Serious and still very funny, Origins is a thoughtful and worthy show.

Install shots by Elad Sarig

Hila Toony Navok’s solo exhibition Origins, 31 October – 6 December, Noga Gallery of Contemporary Art, 60 Ahad Haam Street.