Assi Meshullam
Texts
A selection of texts written in English about Meshullam's visual art.
“And People Shall Be Contaminated by My Doctrine”: Religion, Science, and Nationalism in Assi Meshullam’s Order of the Unclean
Yonatan Amir 2023
An article published in Arts 12:8
Academic Editors: Emma Gashinsky and Tehila Sade
All the Gifts
Shira Friedman 2020
The god Dionysus, who wears a mask, represents intoxication, loss of control, wildness, ecstasy and catharsis. This patron of harvesters and an art-historical symbol of release and awakening serves as a central trope in Assi Meshullam’s exhibition All of the Gifts...
Baal Ha'Bracha
Carmit Blumensohn 2014
Text from Mazal U'Bracha Catalogue
Assi Meshullam invites the viewer to a different universe; a spiritual, mystical and transcendental world in which the "shamanistic", "magical" and "esoteric" are prevalent. The yearning for contact with other worlds, with secret unknown powers, between external worlds of gods and demons and internal, subconscious, irrational worlds, has existed in various cultures from time immemorial...
N.G.H.P
Meital Raz 2011
Text from Voodoo Time Catalogue
In an unrestrained outburst of prophetic writing five years ago, Ro'achem ("your evilness" and also "your shepherd" in Hebrew) was born, a kind of an alter-ego, a prophet and the Order of the Unclean leader, a philosophical-religious conception, ranging between a wild and violent satire on any religion, that is characterized by the blind faith attitude, and a system of beliefs that are suitable to the present social and cultural climate...
Ex-Dance
Tami Katz Freiman 2009
Text from Wild Exaggeration Catalogue
The grotesque characterizes all of Assi Meshullam's works, which deal with different anxieties and the fear of death. In his early works, he achieved this through digital manipulations of his skinny, hairy body – the antithesis of the ideal male body. His self-cloning and distortion reached their apex when he started creating human-animal hybrids. He later went on to create horrific installations which included severed body organs, body parts, and sick animals – images meant to repel and disgust, sarcastic allegories of perversion and distortion...
Iscariot
Haim Maor 2014
Text from Like Animals Catalogue
Assi Meshullam is concerned with the representation of evil in a world in which the boundaries between the knowledge of good and the knowledge of evil have become blurred; in a world in which instinctual violent actions have been civilized, programmed and structured into stylized liturgical and religious rituals. For him, there is a significant difference between animals of prey that hunt and kill other animals for food and human predators whose culture sanctions ritualistic animal sacrifices...
Chicken Coop
Yehudit Matzkel 2006
Text from Disruptions Catalogue
In Assi Meshullam's installation Chicken Coop, the residents of the chicken coop rise up one morning and decide to take matters into their own hands. Cultured nature, tamed to serve economic and household needs, revolts against its jailer and violently overcomes him. The ultimate hangman, who justifies his actions morally, finds himself attacked by his victims – in a wild lynching, which has no father and no mother, no past and no future; which is not driven by revenge, but rather by terror that has crystallized into murder, by hunger which has turned into pecking...
Lexicon of Principles
Alec Mishory 2013
For some time now, Assi Meshullam has been engaged in multidisciplinary art dedicated to what he designates "The Order of the Unclean". This is a kind of contemporary religious order, based essentially on the book of the "Prophet Emissary" called Ro'akhem and on the Lexicon of principles, which is a book of commentary on his doctrine. The names of the "Prophet Emissary" and the book hold a threefold meaning consisting of a play on Hebrew words: Ro'akhem in Hebrew means both 'Your Shepherd' and 'Your Evil'. Also, the rearrangement of the Hebrew letters of 'Ro'akhem' yields 'Mekhoar' (ugly)...
O My God
Interview with Meital Raz 2015
Translated from Hebrew by Etan Sanders
Decay, bodies and biblical motifs dominate the work of the artist Assi Meshullam. After leaving the gallery that represented him and suffering threats from far-right activists, he tells why he gave up his dream of becoming Damien Hirst and why he does not mind getting money from the government of Netanyahu.