Post Conceptual Art in the 1970s Visual arts in Israel

benni efrat

energy, 1969

tel-aviv university, tel aviv-yaffo

conceptual post-minimalist installation artists avital geva, joshua neustein, micha ullman, buky schwartz, benni efrat, zvi goldstein, yochevet weinfeld, adina baron, nahum tevet, or ner, michael gitlin, pinhas cohen gan discarded conventions of taste, heroics of authenticity, , provincial narrative. sheer force , power of evading ‘taste’ while yet remaining in context of art, art redefined, field expanded , artist liberated achieve unique existence , value. (see clement greenberg)

the axioms of 1970s group indifference zionist aesthetics; general distaste regionalism, national myths, , individual heroics. avital geva’s exchange of cultures brought arab villagers , kibbutzniks exchange books 1 another. define purpose art, moved activity greenhouse grow vegetables , fish ponds resistant students, make art educational tool.

ullman’s berlin library created standard memorial sculpture. negative space sculptures made digging under ground. buky schwartz made perspective correction , earliest video art in country. neustein (in collaboration marx , batlle) made first environmental work. jerusalem river project 1971 sound river @ edge of judean desert. boots @ bet omanim jerusalem agglomeration –five truck loads- of army boots left various armies in region, piled random heaps.

joshua neustein, ash city bne brak , herzeliyah museum, 2000

joshua neustein s 5 ash cities geographic ambivalences realized in 5 museums in usa, germany, poland , israel. ash cities on-the-floor relief maps made tons of ashes , chandelier.

efrat’s “ararat express” 1986 procession of horses passed through streets. each horse carried television set on saddle. documentary film projected on television screens showed throngs of people displaced disaster, famine or war, wandering.

efrat, neustein , gitlin produced methodical, basic, severe graphics re-defined materials, tools , viewer s roles. efrat’s double silks , shadow pieces dealt concrete aspect of pictorial surfaces. neustein’s torn paper works, erased drawings, magnetic fields, steel wool, carbon copy drawings adhered unity , uniformity of making objects or images. transformed drawing three-dimensional practice yigal zalmona, josef maschek, robert pincus witten , other international critics called type of art epistemic abstraction . gitlin hacked plywood boards strategy devised neustein of removal , replacement. gitlin s sculptures, however, more architecturally oriented. nahum tevet’s work summarized james trainor: basic building blocks comprise tevet’s formal vocabulary of sculptural units, both small wall works , large, sprawling, encyclopedically heroic sculptural installations, simple, verging on platonically archetypal—the table, chair, box, boat hull, rectilinear plane, book-like block, framework armature, etc. sarit shapira wrote: in possible context, identify mutants of territory, or agents of de-territorialization. quasi-modeled arrangement of these works presents not model of given production mechanism of objects, or distinguish such model; @ most, model-proposal mechanism of objects not yet exist. purpose, tevet replicates items in limited series (the number of items replicated in each work limited, number of times tevet replicates entire works or major parts of them), distancing them automatic , motoric—that is, obedient , “blind”—reproductive mechanism.

these dozen artists not organized movement, there no manifesto rather there strong opinions , ideology, timely kinship found common desire collective agenda. referred post minimal, or conceptual, elaborate israeli visual culture , escape hegemony single group. hallmark public exposures in 5 shows: concept + information 1971 (musag + informazia), beyond drawing 1974, kibbutz ashdod exhibition mikum kivun 1978, 1970s tel aviv museum 2008 art , language , 2006 tel aviv museum eyes of nation ellen ginton 2008.

buky schwartz

levitation, 1976

the perception of want of matter center of israeli art grew in wake of breitberg-semel s influence, pushed many artists side of center. gideon ofrat, in years not art critic , independent curator, partner in various artistic initiatives, set in opposition tel aviv school , new jerusalem school , term origin lay in christian metaphysical interpretation of city of jerusalem. central difference between definition of group , tel aviv school , according ariella azoulay s interpretation, lay in difference in way defined status of art in relation public space. while tel aviv school tended create art within traditional definitions, jerusalem artists sought establish eruv (a ritual enclosure) between art , life. different interpretation, formulated itamar levy, saw in these 2 approaches 2 dialectical concepts opposed conceptuality picturesqueness , universal abstraction specific locality.

another trait of artistic school influence of conceptual art , innovative media such installation , performance or display. worth noting @ time boundaries between these types of media blurred, , use of terms activity , concept , instead of terms installation , display , coined in 1976, referred more intentions of artist final artistic result. photography well, 1970s began means of expression artists, seen tool combining images in conceptual art, , means documenting installations , displays. @ same time, , in distinction american art of time, small amount of art created in israel represented conceptual art entirely minimilistic or concrete, is, art entire reason being of negate definition of art representation or imitation. among artists work in part did represent approach benni efrat, buky schwartz, michael gitlin, , others.

ellen ginton, in article eyes of nation: visual art in country without boundaries (1998) presented art of 1970s response political , social problems of israel during period. artistic formalism perceived not framework social , political content, in addition, according itamar levy s formulation, every element in artistic work perceived both design activity , ideological concept. ginton claimed these political expressions, increased in intensity after political , social crisis followed young kippur war, continued until 1980s, @ time artists abandoned these subversive artistic practices , returned more traditional artistic activity.