Cocoons
ongoing since 2018
Returning to Nature, 2021
curator: Hadas Maor
Botanical Garden, Jerusalem
As part of the exhibition Returning to Nature – a contemporary art show initiated by the Botanical Garden in Jerusalem, in collaboration with Outset Contemporary Art Fund – 16 sculptures by leading Israeli artists have been installed throughout the gardens.
"The work of Yaara Zach – cocoon-like objects that hang from one of the trees in the garden – is made entirely of synthetic and artificial materials. Nonetheless, it manages to trick the viewers by appearing like real bodies or strange, organic growths. The works are installed in a way that embeds them within the botanical environment. Just as the botanical wonders of the garden invoke a sense of wonderment, so do the objects made by Zach. Visitors are left with no choice but to accept their strange measurements and might be led to believe that her works are bodies or growths that infiltrated the garden from their hiding place, deep within the tropical greenhouse. Zach has been preoccupied in her work throughout the years with the presence of the absent body, and the different layers which potentially allow its existence by supporting it, but also delineating and limiting it. This interest of hers is evident in the transformative objects that are on view in the garden, which quite literally allow one body to disappear so that a new one can emerge from underneath it." Hadas Maor, (from the exhibition text).
new circular sculpture path opened October 19th at the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens.
Black Friday - solo exhibition, 2020
Givon Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
"Hanging across the room, on the gallery’s first floor, are Untitled (Cocoons), 2019-2020. These gray latex cocoon-like structures hang in various heights from the ceiling enabling the viewer to go under and around the large-scaled “bodies” which, despite their artificial materiality, seem alive. On the ground beneath them are milky-white Cocoons (Rocks), 2018-2019. These silicone rocks are somewhat transparent and represent a contradiction between the stability and the fossil characteristics of a rock, alongside the softness and transparency of the skin-like silky silicone. The fragility and the flexibility of each of these objects corresponds with the diversity and adaptability needed for survival." Naomi Lev (from the exhibition text).