15Oct
RAFFI LAVIE, the Israeli Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Review by Helen Nisbet
The afternoon at the Giardini was blighted by a need to pee and to eat, so it was grumpily that we approached the Israeli pavilion. But great art has the power to cut through hunger and bladder weakness and I fell in love with the paintings of the late Raffi Lavie – it was reminiscent of Cy Twombly, of late abstract expressionism and of angry graffiti. I was surprised to read that Lavie was not political but wondered if this made him a deliberate choice for such a country’s pavilion. Politics aside I take from this exhibition what I want to and I love his paintings – they are how I wish I could paint and it’s one of the only examples of painting we see.