At the invitation of the Heidenheim Art Museum, the artist Zohar Fraiman created the exhibition “Travelling without Moving”, establishing a dialogue between her own works and those of Pablo Picasso from the museum’s collection.

The idea for the project arose because, in many of her more recent paintings, the artist draws on motifs as well as Picasso’s Cubist approach, whilst reinterpreting them, as it were, from a contemporary, female perspective. In her art, art-historical classics meet motifs from contemporary pop culture; they are depicted holding smartphones or are otherwise catapulted into the fast-paced present. Through this approach, the Cubist concept of ‘simultaneity’ takes on a new meaning. This is also reflected in the title ‘Travelling without Moving’, which is borrowed from a song by the band Jamiroquai and also gives its name to a central piece in the exhibition. In various paintings, the Israeli-born artist explores how our relationship with mobile phones enables us to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. We are captivated by breathtaking images of faraway destinations. Thanks in particular to social media, idealised images of well-known and lesser-known holiday destinations are ubiquitous and stir a desire to visit exactly the same places and take exactly the same photos of ourselves. Yet the projected dream image usually fails to materialise. Firstly, because the idyll has been staged; secondly, because we research and digitally consume photos, restaurants and places in advance via our mobile phones; and thirdly, because the authentic experience gives way to the urge to post selfies, stories and send images to our friends and families.

Yet even without actually travelling physically, we move from place to place in the digital space; we swipe, scroll and click, and in doing so, as the artist puts it, are “trapped in a cycle of doomscrolling, physically immobile but mentally exhausted.”

This concept of ‘travelling without moving’ takes on yet another form in the exhibition, namely in an exploration of a car brand named after Pablo Picasso.