Page 57 - Studio International - October 1967

to Israel after considerable success in Paris, as part
Top Eshet Encounter 15
Sheet-iron 33 x 21+ x 16 in.
Top right Tumarkin
Hashomer shoots Josef Lishanski 1966
Bronze, 23½ x 35½ in.
Above Bar-el Landscape
Detail 21+ x 6 in.
after Tumarkin, the outstanding Israeli sculptor
of the junk-collage movement which included of his age; more classical and traditional, less
Tajiri and Tinguely. Tumarkin comes of mixed concerned to preach or demonstrate. From 1959 to
German and Jewish origins and his work reflects 1962 he studied under Marino Marini in Milan,
strange conflicts. His most recent exhibition in and although the influence remains deep and valu-
Tel Aviv this year was entitled Gangsters, and a able, Eshet has emerged with a distinct and attrac-
catalogue note implied—'Not only in America are tive sculptural personality. His work is organic,
there gangsters, there are gangsters everywhere and based on the human figure; a torso divides itself
in my exhibition too.' He continues to work in into an identical twin, an egg shape is protected by
assemblage, but now also casts found forms, or an echoing form. His work is epigramic and evoca-
modelled sections—which might well include his tive. There are reminders of Brancusi, although
own face or limbs, welded into awkward, almost Eshet works entirely in welded steel; the forms, as
overpowering figures. His work is frankly didactic, in Brancusi, relate to nature, to human and natural
even anecdotal; Tumarkin is a moralist pointing phenomena, to sex, birth, growth. Eshet does not
out the evil that men do, or, as in a series satirically easily relate to the surrealistic tendency, but there are
called Heroes of our time, the vanity of mankind. suggestions in a work like Encounter 15 of a mixture
The influence of or similarity to Aroch, Lavie and of sex and fantasy. Indeed Dr Gamzu has suggested
others can be seen in the attempt to break through an affinity with the hieratic 'creatures' of Hubert
the concept of smooth, chic presentation. He Dalwood. Bar-el is a more secretive, mysteriou3
makes his art out of a mixture of autobiography, artist. He makes painted plaster reliefs, which he
criticism and fantasy, urgently communicative, in calls landscapes, sometimes Urban Landscapes or
contrast to the withdrawal from social problems Oriental Landscapes. These are clearly arch-
which marks British or American sculptors of his itectural and organic, but from the geometry• of
generation. town planning and the balancing of space and
Equally personal, but entirely inspired by decora- form, Bar-el suggests strange, corrosive, destructive
tive fantasy, is the young ceramic sculptress of forces, which may relate to social problems or to
North African origin, Siona Shimshi. Her work is subconscious psychological motives. His work, to
decidedly eccentric; a group of hanging, sack-like use a popular phrase, grows on you. What at first
forms, in fired clay, is given the name Family; Zoo seem simple decorative constructions, become more
is the title of a pot ringed by primitive animal and more disturbing and suggestive. They are
forms; Traffic signal turns out to be an hieratic almost like aerial views of destroyed towns, bombed
sculpture from which, at one end, a group of or devastated by nature, in which traces of human
flower-like shapes hang nonchalantly. One of her life have been obliterated.
most elaborate structures, a gateway built up of This article was written before the recent Arab-
clay blocks, is decorated with Dubuffet-like Israel conflict. The isolation Israel then experi-
graffiti. Again we have the world of a highly enced, the fact that she was forced to rely entirely
imaginative, sophisticated child. on her own powers, must, in my view, strengthen
By contrast, two other young sculptors, Eshet and the psychological isolation which, I suggest, has
Bar-el, are almost staid. Eshet, born in 1935, is, produced the marked change in her current art.