Gil Yefman, It Ain’t Necessarily Soft (installation view) (2023)
August 2023
⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Gil Yefman at Shoshana Wayne Gallery ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚
Gil Yefman’s exhibition at Shoshana Wayne Gallery traffics in undertones. Don’t get me wrong, overtness abounds, too, like in Tumtum (2012), a large, tangled orb of knitted phalluses and labia that hangs from the ceiling. The artwork’s kitschy flair and bright pinks, reds, and golds belie its nuanced undertones—Tumtum, a Hebrew word meaning “hidden,” was used in biblical times to refer to a person with ambiguous genitalia, although, in modern day, the word is often deployed to mean “stupid.” This slippage of language points to deeply-seated prejudices, a theme that continues across the exhibition as Yefman, an Israeli artist based in Tel Aviv, approaches another sinister topic: the Holocaust.
