Thresholds | Shay Zilberman

This creation by the Israeli artist Shay Zilberman invites viewers on a visual journey into worlds where animals and humans touch each other in unexpected, new configurations. A new, original pop-up exhibition on Level 2 of the Museum.

Through his unique creations, Zilberman produces collages of animal creatures, deconstructed and reconstructed from the pages of old animal classification keys. Each creature embodies a being of wild nature recreated by human handiwork: mammals, invertebrates, arthropods, birds and reptiles all undergo a metamorphosis. Zilberman’s creations range from reality to fantasy, bringing together human and animal, culture and nature, while blurring the imaginary boundaries between them.

Precisely at the Steinhardt Museum – a scientific space where classification underlies display – Zilberman’s creations refuse any traditional classification. The raw material of paper and books is metamorphosed by Zilberman into moving, living totem adornments, generating a new perspective on the relationship between man and nature. Ovid’s words in The Metamorphoses – “My soul is wrought to sing of forms transformed to bodies new and strange” – are realized in Zilberman’s creation, which combines spiritual and material in the creation of “new faces on the earth”.

The creations in the exhibition Thresholds do not only speak about nature; they reflect nature’s existing principles of metamorphosis and constant change. Zilberman’s collages merge into a creative tapestry that invites viewers to try out a new perspective that blurs the distinction between animal and human, and between spiritual and tangible. “In the expanses of our dreams, we need wings”, states the text that accompanies the exhibition, reflecting the inner yearning to be reborn through the imagination.

About the artist – Shay Zilberman:
Shay Zilberman (b. 1976) lives in and works in Jaffa, creating manual collage and print. He is a graduate of Beaux-Arts de Paris who has held solo exhibitions in museums and galleries in Israel and around the world, and participated in group exhibitions in the Israel Museum, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Providence College Galleries, Rhode Island, Haifa Museum of Art and more.
His creations are included in the most important public collections and museums in Israel. Over the years he has won broad acclaim and prizes, including the 2022 Alima Rita Award for Print Art and the 2021 Ann and Ari Rosenblatt Prize for Visual Art in Israel

The artist’s website