The collaboration of two artists, from different cultures and beliefs, in the same pictorial work, is necessarily an important event.

But there is more to this than that, more than a simple gesture of tolerance and openness.

The paintings of Chalom Benizri and Robert Bergman show us two decenterings, which are essential.

One is personal: it is the one by which we pass from the self to the I; the other transcends our individualities: it is the movement which, through and by way of Israel, gives us access to all of humanity.

Bergman and Benizri have succeeded in giving pictorial expression to these two essential decenterings; better still, they have joined them by showing us that they are linked and cannot be conceived of without each other.

 

Mony Elkaym.