Dina Shenhav: D.O.A.

A solo exhibition by Israeli installation artist Dina Shenhav. Known for creating immersive tableaux vivant-style installations, Shenhav uses soft materials like ash or foam to sculpt powerful scenes of domestic life and destruction. While Shenhav has exhibited extensively in Europe and the Middle East, this will be her first solo show in the United States. For the installation, Shenhav will meticulously recreate a hunter’s cabin, complete with all of the tools of his trade: rifles, knives, guns, tree stumps, ammunition, traps, taxidermy deer heads and fur pelts.

She will sculpt each item individually using yellow mattress foam, and set them within a meticulously detailed hunt shack interior crafted of the same material. Items from the hunter’s camp will come together as an immersive environment, with every detail of his life and work—his boots, table, even the food on his plate—hand carved by the artist in the pliable yellow foam. Shenhav transforms the soft mattress foam, typically associated with the domestic realm, creating imagery and subject matter that has to do with masculinity, war, combat, or for this specific show, the world of the hunter.