Meet Paz Sher

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paz Sher a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Paz, so happy to have you with us today and there is so much we want to ask you about. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others developed certain skills or qualities that we are struggling with can be helpful. Along those lines, we’d love to hear from you about how you developed your ability to take risk?

Before discussing the ability to take risks, I think it’s essential to recognize that risk, for me, is inherent in any art that seeks to make a difference—art that pursues the nuances of a contemporary moment that cannot be repeated through others’ experiences. I believe I developed the ability to take risks by transforming failures into strengths. Risk also stimulates ambition. Allowing a sculpture to fail came with the ambition of extending its scale. Early in my journey as an artist, I made sculptures and installations that failed to play by conventional aesthetic rules. I often felt like everything I did was wrong, but I realized that art’s purpose isn’t to be right or true but to form a being, to open possibilities for change and new ways of thinking. Aesthetics are the development of a language that, for me, captures a poetic world. I remember a teacher saying on my work as “glorious failures.” My approach has always been to push my art to its limits without concern for the end result because I had faith in a broader vision that lies at the end of the process. It’s like trusting something that works against your instincts and fears, knowing that this is where growth happens. This mindset opened up a vast space of freedom and the capacity to embrace complexities—two qualities the world is struggling with but which I believe are necessary to better solve our global challenges.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I grew up in Israel, and I am an artist. As an Israeli, the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict shaped most of my aspirations to work against the powers that construct this reality. For me, growing up, created an urgency to explore multiple perspectives and accumulate narratives of many people that live under a desperate and violent reality. I’m saying that before getting into any nuances, especially of today’s terrible (terrible!) ongoing war. Accumulation is essential to my practice. I refuse to think in terms of either/or. Now, more than ever! I insist to think in terms of “and”, including the surplus. For me, The surplus, the excess, is what I don’t know where I can place or what to do with, what I don’t need. However, it turns into a remainder as well, a remnant, something we tend to ignore or toss away. But, what happens if we would try to assimilate it, to let it be? It’s an eluding part that is hard to point out its value. Art is unnecessary, but it’s exactly the thing that should disturb us – everything that is unnecessary in our lives and still presses people to be as they are.
As an artist I create complex systems of objects and environments that embody the notions of an unbearable reality and challenge the foundations of social structures, terror, violence, hierarchies, the formation of fascism (everywhere), and the roles of sexuality within those structures. In each project I take a different approach to tackle these issues. Humor has always played a key role in my work, helping to undermine the horror of these big subjects that have long been part of human history. However, today there is no room for humor. For me (and many others), reality became so brutal that technologies and the level of exposure have eroded our ability to imagine the human aspects of this story. But what would we do without imagination? without hope? This is my concern in my work – how things could be imagined differently. Anger, fury, abysmal sadness, compassion, empathy, and hope are the only responses I feel can counter the failure of this moment.
For me, Art is about rethinking the world and what it means to be human. It’s like plugging myself to both the worst and the best of humanity within the contemporary moment and following its poetics. Art is in a constant state of transformation, evolving alongside of human experiences, perceptions, and technological reality. This is why my art is not confined to a single subject or form – I change as we go. I create art that I hope will inspire people to consider how we can build a better future for all.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I consider myself an introverted person, and I find the qualities of it significantly connected to the artist I am. I often wonder if someone who only sees my art would think the opposite. One of the most impactful qualities in my journey has been my ability to listen. Before I speak out, I listen to others, to my surroundings, to the chain of events occurring in the world. Listening doesn’t mean agreeing. I try to be open to things that I might not initially understand and revisit them with my own thoughts. Being a listener creates an inner dialogue where I internalize different positions, understand the essences of systems and mechanisms, and find ways to translate them into materials and objects. Often, the abstraction of ideas exists before their articulation. I’m driven by the desire to get to the core of things, especially when they are ambiguous, hold dualities, and become decisive.
Another significant skill is my ability to learn how to make things. The possibilities for making today, and the abundance of available knowledge, are phenomenal. Today, all people need is to learn how to learn, along with the creativity and freedom to explore the learning process. Knowledge is already out there. I can build and create a lot of things —from making soap and tofu at home to mold making, building a fountain or a rotating sculpture. However, in the fine arts, knowing how to make things can also be a problem. If we can make anything, what is the most crucial thing to create? How should I create something so it will carry different meanings through its appearance? Why should it look one way and not another?
Lastly, I don’t know if I can claim for this area of knowledge, but I read and had taken some classes in philosophy. My brother studied philosophy and always shared with me what he learned, which provided a good introduction to different concepts and interesting questions to discuss. However, the actual reading was much harder to cross. Derrida is a big influence for my practice. You need to spend a huge amount of hours just to begin to understand what is it that you’re reading. I was fortunate to have mentors who deepened my ability to engage with these concepts, and it has become more fluent over the years. My best advice for someone looking to expand their views through reading is not to be intimidated by what they don’t understand. Keep going until it clicks. It’s all about enriching the journey one could take.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

Graduating from grad school resets your practice, for good and for bad. I moved to Brooklyn, NY, and it’s like starting all over again. One of my biggest challenges is how to convince others to believe in my work without seeing it in person. My art is not a sculpture I can bring over or show at every place. I’ve always felt that people truly value my work only when they experience it in real life. The full experience, the necessity of a physical encounter with the work in particular space, is crucial. An encounter is about the freedom to move toward, with, and through the installation. An image can give an idea of what it was, but it cannot create a presence, a being..
To overcome this challenge, I’ve taken a significant step by launching a new website that shows my development as an artist. I also have friends and colleagues in the city and I want to be part of a bubbling artists’ community, and, hopefully, to seize some of the opportunities New York offers to young artists. New York, a center for international artist, should be one of the places to bring the possibility for art to emerge. I’ve started rolling my next project around in my mind—it’s usually how I begin—and once I secure a job and a studio, I’ll dive back into the work.
All that being said, I’ve always been driven by the desire to see what I imagine. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I want to see beyond my imagination. So, I know I should trust my work discipline more than any external motivation. This is what truly helps me overcome this challenge. I hope it eventually works out in some way. Perhaps it’s time to take another risk.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.pazsher.com
• Instagram: @paz.sher

Image Credits

Exsoteria – images 1,2,4,5 – Johnny Fogg
Exsoteria – image 3 – David Hale