"Mashaker" – Head Pendant 

This exhibition deals with identity through jewelry. On exhibition are two groups of work: First, tiny objects are displayed, amulets, beads and buttons. Second, formatted on a larger scale, images of a bride are displayed as well as images which direct your gaze down, towards the jewelry. Here the artist gradually blurs and erases the jewelry and items in the picture. Givon exhibits a group of twelve metal tablets and a jewelry box in which the memory of the missing jewelry is reflected.

The source of inspiration for the exhibition is a book by Carmela Avdar, sister to the artist, "Embroidered Works" and her mother's memories of her jewelry, which she was forced to leave there, before her journey to Israel.   

The treatment of components of Israeli identity in the current exhibition continues a trend which appeared in the artist's previous exhibitions. In "Mashaker" the artist stresses the existence of a symbiotic relationship between women and jewelry, the removal of jewelry being like the removal of a body part. In the white pictures, which are in fact embossed, it seems as if the jewelry is embossed onto the body itself.

The story of the Mother, which hides behind the pictures of the jewelry created by her artist daughter, illustrates the process of creating an Israeli identity from a combination of cultures. This, also, is the story of many who reached Israel from different lands.   

From the writings of the curator
Devorah Goldberger

July, 2010