Reichman stirs the pot with his Light show

IN THE words of its director Pierre d’Alancaisez, the Waterside Contemporary in north London is a gallery that shows “art stemming from or pertaining to the political”. So it is an apposite forum for the work of Israeli artist Ariel Reichman in his first UK exhibition, Who Distinguishes Light From Dark, which is supported by the Israeli embassy as part of its mission to “introduce Israeli culture to the British public”.

South African-born, Reichman moved to Israel when he was 13 and has spent six years living and working in Berlin. And, since he has resided in different places, a recurrent theme in his work is that of boundaries.

The artist explains that the seeming bareness of the gallery relates to his experimentation with “things that are not static. Instead, I built a structure inside the gallery space that hosts the works.

“If you look in from the outside the gallery looks really empty but there are actually quite a lot of works.”

One side of the structure contains 18 framed photographs of a metal fence. Reichman says that he overexposed the wire using his camera flash. “I took something very hard and turned it into something very abstract, very light, almost not existing.”

His political perspective is that “a line is a border and I am trying to deconstruct this border with the flash of the camera. [This is] interesting, because a camera could document a political situation. But here the camera is deconstructing the reality.”

The structure also hosts a film depicting Reichman trying to keep a dynamo torch alight. True to the exhibition’s title — taken from prayers recited during the Havdalah — a nearby video shows the artist’s mother struggling to use a lighter for the first time.

Initially reluctant to talk about the religious influence on his work, he eventually reveals: “I come from a religious background, from an Orthodox family and though I am not any more, they still are.”

His father Yaakov is a cantor who at one time served London’s Central Synagogue.

“I was thinking about the Havdalah rituals and the part in the blessing where you say you distinguish light from dark. I am interested in that moment, that moment of definition, that moment of separation.

“On the one hand, I am trying to understand it and on the other hand I am trying to think of it critically so that separation can be both positive and problematic. This question of boundaries and separation in this case is through the light.” The exhibition runs until March 22 at Waterside Contemporary, 2 Clunbury Street, London N1 6TT. www. watersidecontemporary.com