5 X 5: Other Voices

5 x 5: Other Voices inaugurates Litvak Contemporary and its new gallery spaces in Tel Aviv. By bringing together a broad range of painters of different countries and of different generations, the exhibition seeks to address various approaches to painting today. Figuration and abstraction both make their appearances and occasionally in tandem. The gestural mark of the artist is very much in evidence in some of the work presented; in others there is a reduction of the hand. Raw emotional content shares the stage with detached formalism. At first blush the divergent styles may confuse, but as Barbara MacAdam points out, the connecting thread is an underlying tension and duality. The confluence of artists from Europe, the United States and, of course, Israel, serves as a mission statement for the gallery to be a platform for the many voices amongst contemporary practitioners, regardless of origin.