Longstanding collaborators in life and art, performance artist Tamy Ben-Tor and painter Miki Carmi excavate and analyze human archetypes through their philosophically oriented practice. Using different approaches, both artists strip their subjects bare, revealing the marks that define each subject’s neurotic psychological state. The result is a close look at the undeniable tension between material life and the desires of the soul. Ben-Tor’s performances and Carmi’s painting are made in a shared space through constant dialogue, and fuse into singular projects through video works.

 

Carmi’s primary subjects are his grandparents and parents, who he photographs and paints, removing hair and identifying clothing. This is set in stark contrast to Ben-Tor’s similarly probing human studies, which are based on close observation and extrapolation of behaviors through her expansive fluency with language, accent, gesture, costuming and aural effect. Archival photography, specifically ethnography as connected to the eugenics projects of the nineteenth and twentieth century, orients their understanding of the face. There is a modified nostalgia that points out the impact of fracturing the whole self (mind, body, soul) through the western intellectual tradition. The results are a large body of work that presents an utterly particular logic and visual quality. The surfaces appear filtered through a lens that compresses time. Sepia tones, browns, deep greens, a yellow hue: this tonal register Ben-Tor and Carmi have formulated infers the past, but a past that has never existed. It is a hue of now that incorporates and acknowledges its progenitors.

 

Between Ben-Tor’s absurdist performances that conflate subjects to unravel core emotional, social and hierarchical formulations that poison contemporary culture and Carmi’s intimate, probing paintings that construe the specificity of humanity and memory, these artists have developed a visual language oriented by the grotesque. They offer an insightful and stirring reflection on the process of disembodiment in our time.

 

The designers of this two-volume book project are Joshua Gamma and Joel Brendan.

 

Joel Brenden is a photographer, installation- and book-artist. His projects and research investigate natural and built ecologies, memory, environmental inscription, and identity. His work has been exhibited at Hallwalls Contemporary, Western New York Book Arts Center, The Burchfield-Penney, and at Tri-Mania 2018. As a designer he has created books for CEPA Gallery, University at Buffalo Department of Art, and Actar. He holds an MFA in Visual Studies from the University at Buffalo, and a BFA in Drawing at Central Washington University. Brenden is a professor of photography and design, and a frequent teaching artist at Just Buffalo Literary Center, conducting workshops on bookmaking and the intersection of poetry, poetics, and photography. In 2013, Brenden founded LINOLEUM, a small press periodically publishing artist books, zines, editions, and other printed matter.

 

Josh Gamma is a curator and designer based in Baltimore, Maryland. He has lived a nomadic life, first due to his father’s service in the U.S. Coast Guard—growing up primarily in Louisiana and Texas—and later, due to his own service in the U.S. Army. Gamma’s work lives at the crossroads of art, design, music, activism, history, and folklore. He sees his role as that of an ally, an amplifier, and a co-laborer with the artists and activists he works with. Joshua Gamma received his MFA in Curatorial Practice from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in the spring of 2019.

TextBook: Tamy Ben-Tor & Miki Carmi is made possible in part by the Polish Cultural Institute in New York. This title will be published in September 2021.

Tamy Ben-Tor was born in Jerusalem where she attended The School of Visual Theater, and lives in New York, where she met Carmi during the MFA program at Columbia University School of the Arts. Selected individual exhibitions: Radical Humanism (with Miki Carmi), Rosenfeld Gallery, Tel Aviv (2014); Young Emerging Artists Eating and Fucking (with Miki Carmi) Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw, Poland (2012);1646, Project Space, The Hague (2010); Disembodied Archetypes (with Miki Carmi), Zach Feuer Gallery, New York, Stefan Stux Gallery, New York, Beaumontpublic +königbloc, Luxemburg (2009); Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, Kunsthalle Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland (2008); The Kitchen, PERFORMA 07, Salon 94, New York (2007). Selected group exhibitions: Le Nouveau Festival du Centre Pompidou, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015); Theatrical Gestures, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel (2013); Day Labor, PS1/MoMA, New York (2005). Works in collections: American University Museum, Washington; Miami Art Museum, Miami; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Miki Carmi, born in Jerusalem, graduated from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem before receiving his MFA at Columbia University School of the Arts in New York.  He has had solo shows at Stefan Stux Galley, NY, Beaumont Public, Luxemburg, Anne De Villepoix, Paris, and has participated in exhibitions at SOMA Museum, Seoul, MONA Museum, Tasmania, and HVCCA, Peekskill, NY. He has published two art books: Disembodied Archetypes (with Tamy Ben-Tor), 2009, and Miki Carmi, 2012 (with an essay by Coco Fusco). His work has been reviewed by Donald Kuspit in Artforum (March 2006), Ken Johnson at the NY Times, and Michael Wilson (Time-Out NY 2010). He is currently represented by Stefan Stux Gallery, NY.

Date: September 18, 2017
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Miki Carmi, Cactus, 2013, one-hour photo prints using Cannon AT1 reflex camera with patina from floor of paint drips, dust, hair, 4 x 6 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Collaboration, Smudi, 2010, 9:32min. video still. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Acidic grandma, 2010, oil on canvas, 41 x 37 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Tamy and Gavri, 2012, oil on paper mounted on canvas, 24 x 18 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Big dad, 2012, oil on canvas, 67 x 50 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Big Mom, 2013, oil on canvas, 55 x 42 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Collaboration, one-hour photo prints using Cannon AT1 reflex camera with patina from floor of paint drips, dust, hair, 4 x 6 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Tamy Ben-Tor, 2009, Malmo, Sweden. performance documentation, video still. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Cactus Grandma, 2015, oil on canvas, 58 x 42 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Dad, 2012, oil on canvas, 42 x 32 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Tamy Ben-Tor, I’m Uzbek, 2009, 3:44 min. video still. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Grandma, 2006, oil on canvas, 69 x 50 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Collaboration, Debi, 2017, performance documentation, one-hour photo prints using Cannon AT1 reflex camera with patina from floor of paint drips, dust, hair, 6 x 4 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Grandfather, 2006, oil on canvas, 69 x 50 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Collaboration, Ensor, 2012, performance documentation one-hour photo prints using Cannon AT1 reflex camera with patina from floor of paint drips, dust, hair, 6 x 4 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Grandma, 2005, oil on canvas, 72 x 52 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Collaboration. Polish Girl, 2008, one-hour photo prints using Cannon AT1 reflex camera with patina from floor of paint drips, dust, hair. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Grandma, 2007, oil on canvas, 42 x 35 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Tamy Ben-Tor. Izaak, 2009, 11:29 min. video still. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, 2011, Retarded Baby, oil on canvas mounted on cardboard, 11 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Self-portrait Masturbating, 2016, oil on paper, 24 x 18 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
Collaboration, Smudi, 2010, 9:32min. video still. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, The Artist as a Homosexual Bully, 2015, marker on A4 paper. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, The Holy Family, 2015, pen on A4 paper. Courtesy of the artists.
Collaboration, The Meaning of Life, 2016, 16:43 min. video still. Courtesy of the artists.
Miki Carmi, Tub, 2010, one-hour photo prints using Cannon AT1 reflex camera with patina from floor of paint drips, dust, hair, 6 x 4 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
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