Carbona

Plonit Gallery
Simta Plonit 3
Tel-Aviv
Israel

Exhibition co-curated with Dana Kessler. The show closed with a live performance by Charlie Megira on July 8th 2002.

Artists: Dana Kessler, Pil and Galia Kollectiv and Avi Pitchon

"New York proto-punk band The Dictators came together on the basis of a shared love of girls, cars and comics. They didn't know what to call it, so they called it punk. When the Ramones didn't have money to buy glue, they would nick a can of Carbona, a stain remover, from the supermarket, and sniff it with cheap white wine. Carbona leaves damp stains of white powder on your lips and makes you stupid, too fast and unfocused.

We like rock 'n' roll, junky films and Adidas Italia. We like silver flying V guitars, socialist youth educational films and unreasonable quantities of Tabasco - a very specific list of items from the infinite abundance offered by contemporary culture, things that don't always mix well, that can be really embarrassing within a year or five minutes or as soon as you've uttered them. We hate arty things, but we love art and we can't stand people who talk about different kinds of canvas, colour fields, textures and brush strokes.

We get bored fast. Our blood cells get hurled like ping pong balls that never get hit back. Art for the rich, power and cynicism bore us, but national and sexual identities bore us even more. Like every wave of boredom that has preceded us, we haven't the time to wait for the world to run its course up the bureaucratic ladder/ We want to be reborn as superheroes and die immediately, at least until next time.

Liberty belongs to anyone who has a computer, a bass guitar, a sewing machine or a video camera: we are all culture workers. Our union needs to be founded and signed in dust: Carbona to remove the stains of boredom from the sated artworld's shirt.

We also like America, with the radio on".

Read catalogue essay The Death of the Teenager. The catalogue also featured a short story by JT Leroy, art and writing by Avi Pitchon and work by Dana Kessler, Mey-Tal Hillel, Nathan Zeldes and Sarah Emerson.

Read a preview of the exhibition (in Hebrew) here.