BoysCraft

Lior Shvil

In this work, Lior Shvil masquerades as a Palmach fighter or Zionist pioneer, and appears to be playing or struggling with a life-size rag doll dressed as an Arab. The artist and the doll (hand-sewn and stuffed with wool) engage in a complex relationship that develops in the course of a joint dance. Beginning as a ridiculous attempt to move to the tune of a classical Israeli song, the dance ends with a violent struggle in a hammock, where the doll is vanquished. This work evolved out of an earlier installation that included a tank, a watchtower and a parachute sewn and stuffed by the artist in a similar style. By transforming these charged symbols into soft sculptures or into a child's game, Shvil ridicules conventional perceptions of the Zionist ethos and of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Born in Tel Aviv, 1971; lives and works in Tel Aviv