In “Echoes of Childhood”, Bokobza sets the spirits of his own childhood and that of his family against those of Recanati, thereby creating a new and contemporary statement that explores childhood in North Africa. The search for the past is a personal, intimate journey — the most direct and simple way to tell one’s own story and point to the sources of each artist’s inspiration.

The exhibition reveals both real and imagined childhood worlds — each artist brings to it his own memories, experiences, and events from childhood, which served as a rich source of creative inspiration. In this way, the cultural richness of the past emerges, along with the distinct stylistic transformations — Recanati’s abstract story and Bokobza’s narrative one — each offering its own unique layers of meaning.

Bokobza’s seemingly simple paintings succeed in reviving the background from which he emerged as an artist. Folklore intertwines with high culture; the hammam merges with the modern city; palm trees blend into urban architecture; and the allure of Hollywood cinema fuses with the modest neighborhood café. The cinematic temptation led Bokobza to merge his love of painting with his fascination for moving images, as in film — the creation of a total fantasy.

The video work Bokobza created especially for the exhibition takes Recanati’s desert prints and combines them with figures of veiled women in the oriental city. Thus, the little girl in the red dress — reminiscent of Shirley Temple — becomes part of the city’s life and the atmosphere of the hammam. Her innocent appearance stands out against the backdrop of women dressed in traditional black attire.

This fusion is also part of the depiction of transition. The fluidity between cultures represents a search for cultural connection, charged with the crossings that serve as a backdrop for exploring identity and roots — a search for memory that must not be lost, for one’s personal past, where nostalgia fills the sense of childhood loss: in Recanati’s work on a personal level, and in Bokobza’s on a communal one.

Curator: Hagay Segev