In contemporary art, the boundaries between the various applied arts, design and crafts have become blurred, and the use of various materials in sculpture and installations is an integral part of artistic expression and present-day artworks. Ido Noy uses goldsmith techniques in his artwork. The original goldsmith miniature designs of everyday objects, removed from their context, express our present reality in an original way. Noy is inspired by Tel-Aviv's buildings, observing them with the outsider's fresh point of view. Tel-Aviv, the so called "white city," is revealed as clustered, crowded and dense. The architectural space consists of an agglomeration of elements added over time, unplanned, in a chaotic and incidental process. The piled-up buildings and the objects attached appear to the young artist as ornaments; the electric poles, antennas, air-conditioners, and even garbage bins become decorations. The improvised and unaesthetic symbols of our ongoing hectic life are transformed into an infinite series of miniature artworks. The quantity is of importance, as a metaphor that emphasizes the feeling of the crowded urban space. New buildings are haphazardly added in between old, shabby ones; others receive new facades or elevations, and some are demolished to accommodate new shining towers that reach to the sky. Copper, bronze, brass, silver and gold are carefully crafted, cut and welded, flattened into small delicate objects of art. The detail and the whole in Ido's work provide a new and original perspective of the hundred year-old Tel Aviv. |