Sher Avner. Life tracks

A ‘visual Esperanto’ to be read by going through several levels of understanding: graphic signs, gestures, emotions, bodies, to banish all cultural differences. Perhaps this is why Avner Sher chose cork as the main material for his works. Between the cracks, the wounds in the outer bark of the Cork oak, one can read rebirth. The bark is peeled off the trunk once every nine years, a repeated trauma that the oak tries to forget. The Israeli artist uses cork to create an inner world, one that sinks into its origins and feeds on desires. Through his art, Avner Sher wants to decode the present and observe the collision points between civilisations inon-date with beliefs, despairs and hopes. Avner Sher’s solo exhibition ‘Bridge Palermo Jerusalem’ will open on Thursday 14 June at 6.30 p.m. in the Sala delle Verifiche of the Steri monumental complex in Palermo, where it will remain until 31 August.
Conceived by Ermanno Tedeschi – an international curator with many years of experience in the promotion of Jewish and Israeli cultural excellence – and Flavia Alaimo, an art historian already involved in exhibition events on the theme of the exodus, the exhibition is organised by Acribia in agreement with the University of Palermo, enjoys the patronage of the Israeli Embassy, and is included in the programme of Palermo Italian Capital of Culture 2018. A site-specific project realised for the Università degli Studi, which proves to be particularly significant,’ explains Rector Fabrizio Micari. ’On the one hand, it is linked to the poetics of Av-ner Sher, which is profoundly linked to Jerusalem and the concepts of destruction and rebirth associated with the history of the Jewish people; on the other, it is rooted in the city hosting the exhibition, springing from original research on reproductions of ancient maps of Palermo.