Dede & Nitzan Mintz | The Eye is a Door

THE EYE IS A DOOR
Dede Bandaid & Nitzan Mintz

A duel exhibition of artists Nitzan Mintz and Dede Bandaid. In this exhibition, the two multidisciplinary street artists, who are also life partners and art collaborators, present a new extensive body of work they created together over the past year.

After exhibiting and creating projects all over the world, the two return to Israel with their largest solo exhibition to date, spanning over the gallery’s two floors and featuring over 50 new works. The two artists display artwork that took shape over the last year, but also incorporate previous works they created years ago, some more than a decade ago. The starting point for the decision to work with their art archive was the destruction of a home. The couple, who have been living and working for the past four years in a south Tel Aviv studio that they renovated with their own hands, converted it from an abandoned brothel into a studio and living space. They found out earlier this year that they will have to move out due to a dramatic rent increase.

As many other young people pushed out of the city by the rising cost of living, Mintz and Dede felt powerless. They channeled their rage, frustration, and despondency into an exceptionally radical and bold artistic move. The two tore apart all the renovations they made in their studio and home and used those materials – wallpaper, sheetrock, concrete, and more – and turned to their old bodies of work, stored in a spare room, shredding and destroying most of the works.  They used these elements as raw materials for the new works of art presented in this exhibition. “Working for many years in the violent public space, where we create murals that may disappear in an instant, has affected our ability to expunge bodies of works and let go of what is close to our heart,” says Mintz about the surprising decision of the two. Dede adds: “This exhibition is like the opening shot in the destruction of our home, in preparation for the move and a new period in our life. It represents our decision not to take anything with us but start over completely.”

In 1916, British author Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch wrote in his book On the Art of Writing, “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.” While the adage he coined (popularized in its paraphrased form “kill your darlings”) was meant as advice for writers, over time it was also adopted by the visual art world. This idea can inform Mintz and Dede’s new artistic strategy and its outcomes, featured in this exhibition: Killing so as to regenerate; a farewell that refuses to become nostalgic reminiscing and instead inspires the couple to move on towards a new chapter in their lives as artists.

The year-long work process became a parting tribute to the beloved home studio. When the two also decided to take apart furniture they had built and integrate the pieces into the new artworks. Thus, the mailbox, chairs, and partition screens made their way into the art, alongside the couple’s characteristic motifs –Hebrew and English texts in Mintz’s handwriting, composing emotionally and visually dense poetry, and Dede’s band-aids that mend social and personal wounds. In the new series of works, Mintz and Dede borrowed one another’s previous works and created merged mosaics in one another’s current work. They formulated a new world, one in which their individual signature styles juxtapose one another – the past meets the present and domestic and intimate mementos from different times in their life become uncanny and foreign, yet familiar.

Curator: Yaron Haramati
Text: Joy Bernard

Nitzan Mintz (b. 1989) is an artist and a visual poet, who lives and works in Tel Aviv. She graduated from Minshar Art College Fine Arts and Creative Writing Departments, as well as Helicon School of Creative Writing, Tel Aviv. She started her artistic path at the age of 17, as a street artist who works in the public space of Tel Aviv, placing her poems on walls in the city streets. Since 2013, she has also been working in the studio, creating works featured in formal art venues. She was invited to exhibit, individually and together with her life partner and collaborator, the artist Dede Bandaid, many works on the streets of major international cities, including New York, Berlin, Vienna, London, Lodz and Paris. In Poland, Mintz had the honor to of being invited to place her poetry on the walls of the Lodz Ghetto.

Dede Bandaid is the pseudonym of the prominent Israeli street artist who lives and works in Tel Aviv. He holds a bachelor’s degree in fine art from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. His hallmark is the band-aid image that appears in many of his works, and gave him his nickname “Dede Bandaid.” During his military service, Dede started spray painting street graffiti with anti-establishment visual messages. Later, he used stencils to spray paint architectural elements, blown-up hybrid animals, and doves. Over the years he developed more techniques, such as confetti pasting, paper wall murals, drawing and brush and spray painting. In his works, Dede takes on many social issues, including crony capitalism, the housing crisis, the plight of the homeless in Tel Aviv, social protests, and more. Dede’s works are displayed in public spaces as well as galleries and museums in New York, Miami, London, Berlin, Russia, and Israel. Since 2014, Dede has also been collaborating with his life partner, the artist Nitzan Mintz.