Page 55 - Studio International - October 1967

Little current art from abroad reaches Israel. artist high-priced sales; lesser known artists are too Dantziger, Haber, Eloul, Azaz, Palombo, Shemi —
Valiant efforts are made by local museums to great a risk. about whom I wrote earlier in Studio International
bring the work of major artists to the country; but What effect has this growing isolation had in (August, 1964). Their activity coincided with, in-
inevitably they are established figures and move- recent years ? In the older generation a dependence deed related to the up-building of the new state, the
ments, rather than controversial, experimental on outmoded Parisian or Expressionist manners. creation of new towns and public buildings,
ones. Israel's geographic and political oddness Among younger artists an immersion in Jewish sub- business houses, hotels, in an optimistic movement
prevents it enjoying a fair share of inter-govern- ject matter, partly the old search for local colour, of expansion. These artists were less influenced by
mental patronage. The British Council, for in- but in more original artists like Naftali Bezem and the older generation, among whom there had been
stance, rarely sends exhibitions to the country Shmuel Bonneh a return to the Bible as national few sculptors. With fresher eyes they responded to
since 'it is off our circuit', i.e. uneconomic and literature rather than religion. Their mixture of local terrain and light, and to the patronage which
diplomatically tricky. naivety and fantasy has similarities with Chagall provided them with unprecedented opportunities.
There is virtually no international activity in the and other Jewish-Russians; to it is added a gayer, They produced an idealistic, public art, using un-
numerous private galleries in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, more optimistic, Israeli note. sophisticated materials and forms, somehow
Haifa and elsewhere. Dealers cannot afford the The third development, and to me the most im- expressing the ambitions and ideals of the post-
cost of transportation or guarantee a successful portant, was a new school of monumental sculptors, Independence decade.
That spirit and the art form it inspired has largely
disappeared. Israel is in the throes of a serious
economic depression; the buoyancy of the 'fifties
Facing page Josef Halevy and early 'sixties, buttressed by Jewish aid and
Which is the right way?
German reparations, has gone. Artists no longer
Oil on canvas
joyfully impress you with major commissions. The
39½ x 46 in.
work of the younger artists has become smaller and
more personal, not attempting to describe a public
Lower facing page
need or philosophy, but reflecting a private,
Samuel Bak
narrow world, whether of withdrawal or of moral
Still-life with tempest 1966
Oil on canvas protest.
40 x 60 in. It is interesting to note that in Britain, as in
America, young artists shun the private and the
Right Reuben Berman personal, seeking detached, unemotional shapes or
A hole eater under surveillance images— a determination not to involve them-
1966 selves in public issues, in spiritual or philosophic
Acrylic (black and white) panaceas.
24 x 25½ in.
Surrealism, unlike Dadaism, investigated the
narrow experience of individual man; Dadaism
Lower left Beeri
was a protest against materialism and the worship
The apple
of the art object, a satirical form of protest. If my
Acquatint
10½ x 9 in. analysis of the Israeli situation is correct, it is not
surprising that something more akin to Surrealism
Lower right Rafie Lavie seems to preoccupy many younger artists.
Samer Bond When the Austrian painter Hundertwasser was
oil on canvas interviewed during his recent London exhibition,
30 x 20 in. he referred to the current Surrealism in Vienna as
reflecting a 'closed territory'. The same may be
true of Israel where a growing isolation, not only
artistic but also political and economic, seems to
have bred an unexpected introversion.
A short while ago such an analysis would have
seemed ludicrous. It was an exhibition 'Image —
Imagination' held at the Tel Aviv Museum in
January 1967, held concurrently with a major
Surrealist exhibition, which revealed a significant
national movement. Dr Haim Gamzu, the Director
of the Museum, explained the title as 'far more
open to the wide reaches of artistic perceptivity
than "Surrealism", which implies almost sectarian
adherence to a specific style ... ' The artists in the
exhibition, he added, 'have not sworn allegiance
to any common ideology and have not undertaken
the duties of membership of any specific group.'
What they have in common, to again quote Dr
Gamzu, 'is that they give free rein to their imagina-
tion; nor do they hesitate to be descriptive, when
this means being able to tell a story or depict an
atmosphere of which the wondrous, the mysterious,
the unusual make up the essential components... It
is this imagery that transcends, with it figural
representations, the world of reality, to soar into
those mysterious worlds that are inhabited by
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