Homecomings

Maya Gordon was born in Chorzów in 1947. In 1957 she immigrated to Israel, where she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Jerusalem (Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design). In the 1970s she immigrated to the Netherlands, where she studied at Jan Van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht.

Autobiographical themes from her childhood as well as present life are clear in the oeuvre of Maya Gordon. The complex national identity of the artist has a huge impact on her artistic activity. Her oeuvre is characterized by an emotional and personal approach to changing political and social situations in Poland, Israel and the Netherlands.

Maya Gordon often recalls her childhood memories from Poland, which were interrupted by the emigration to Israel at the age of 10. She returns to the Polish symbolic iconosphere, which she uses intuitively and consciously. Gordon incorporates symbols from various fields – from political, through religious to pop culture. She observes reality with a pinch of salt, in a humorous and light form, often passing on nostalgic content.

Maya Gordon

From word to word

Exhibition Bureau/Polish Modern Art Foundation

Krakowskie Przedmieście 16/18 lok. 4, Warsaw

22 September 2018, Saturday, 17:00 – 18:00

23 September 2018, Sunday, 17:00 – 18:00

Maya Gordon’s performance during the exhibition opening weekend, as part of the Warsaw Gallery Weekend.

Maya Gordon starts a dialogue with the words, while being a dyslectic. Letters composed in a word are for her a form of sculpture that has been given meaning. This form, the medium of meanings, is a poem as well as an object.

Maya Gordon lives and works in Amsterdam, Tel Aviv and Warsaw.

Her works were presented at many exhibitions, such as:

• Zuzanna Ginczanka. Only Happiness is Real Life, Museum of Photography in Cracow, 2016
• Young Poland. Afterimages of Reality, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, 2016
• Young Poland. Afterimages of History, Museum of History of Yugoslavia, Belgrad, 2016
• Zuzanna Ginczanka. Only Happiness is Real Life, Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature, Warsaw, 2015
• Rhetorical Figures. Warsaw Architectural Sculpture 1918-1970, Xavery Dunikowski Museum of Sculpture in Królikarnia, Branch of the National Museum in Warsaw, 2006
• Intimate Architecture, Abandoned Architecture, CSW Kronika, Bytom, 2006
• Golden Hands, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya 1995