Boundless
Painting
By Irena Gordon
"The paper is a space where different
elements coexist together"
David Gerstein
ÔÉmy love is building a magic, a discrete/ tower of magicÕ, wrote the
modernist American poet E.E Cummings and his words seem to be whispered
lovingly by the works of the Israeli artist David Gerstein: the revelation of
line, shape, color and movement, which are created in a few magic strokes, are
intrinsic to his works. Much like E.E. Cummings' poems, Gerstein's creations
are outwardly simple and transparent - their existence airy and light - as they
strive to touch the untouchable. Both his paintings and sculptures, embrace a
quintessential quality of form and of matter. They appeal to their viewers
without bashfulness or hesitation, seducing them into a world of art, full of
enchantment and delight.
s a painter and a sculptor, an excellent
draughtsman and a dexterous designer, David Gerstein seeks to expand the limits
of two-dimensional paintings into three-dimensional sculptures. In his choice
of subject matter he wishes to break down the existing barriers between the
work of art and its audience by creating enchanted and straightforward images,
which render, at times, intimate, dream-like na•ve scenes and at other times,
cinemascope-like, large scale, choreographed events. His easily recognizable
artistic colorful syntax have developed gradually, reflecting a search for a
distinct voice, which ranges from the local to the universal and echoes several
levels of representation simultaneously.
As a prolific artist,
Gerstein manages to create a universal, colorful and representational imagery
of human behavior that is based on daily, intimate moments. This behavior is
set against various backdrops that vary from the urban to the rural. Moreover,
his art as a whole, in spite of its appearing detachment, systematically
contains and retains many autobiographical elements. Consequently, any
contemplation on or consideration of the works evokes an experience, which is
both collective and personal.
This survey of Gerstein's
work follows the various transformations his art has undergone. It traces the
formation and crystallization of his artistic language and its remarkable
characteristics, while trying to pinpoint the full range of Gerstein's
encounters and interactions with leading concepts of modernism and
post-modernism to which he addresses openly. It also attempts to shed light on
the way his critical stance has developed and changed from sarcastic criticism
to sheer individualistic optimism and joy.
Although Gerstein does not
speak much of his childhood and of first influences, an abundance of
landscapes, of figures and of sensations from this period flood his work, both
in paintings and sculptures. Childhood scenery and sensations reminiscent of
infancy are very much alive, pounding throughout his artÕs changing forms.
Their various incarnations can be traced back to his first works as a mature
artist: The figurative paintings of the 70's, his family members –
parents and twin brother - appear in numerous compositions, most of them
dramatic. The family figures in these works, which are mainly in watercolor,
are set either indoors, in lugubrious, somewhat threatening, rooms or in
specific outdoor settings like the Dead Sea, where the family used to spend
their annual vacation, and which are rendered as static and oppressive.
Yet, the intimidating
atmosphere is always accompanied by elements of irony and of the grotesque,
even humor and playfulness, which are imbedded in a frantic line and much
exaggerated appearance of the figures: they are either very thin or very fat;
their facial expression is theatrical in its caricaturist and dramatic presence
and they are disclosed in apparent embracing, intimate or awkward situations.
In later family watercolors of the late 70's and early 80's, GersteinÕs own
children appear – their figures interchanging with those of his parents
and brother in the early works.
Gerstein was born in the
Gheula neighborhood in Jerusalem in 1944 as an identical twin brother to
Jonathan. Although born four years earlier, Gerstein and his brother belonged
to the first generation of the newly born Israeli state – a
Gerstein family moved to the city of Ramat Gan,
where David's father opened a small leather workshop and David or Dudu, as he
became known, worked with him side by side during his adolescence.
In an interview taken in
2002, Gerstein acknowledges: "Childhood memories are the most dominant element
to someone who makes art. I'm sure that things that were experienced in
childhood become a motif in adolescence. When I think why I am now cutting
shapes and figures I get back to my father who was a leather cutter. He had a
workshop for cutting leather and I would help him. This thing of taking and
cutting up a shape seems to be essential in my life. Making paper cutouts is a
popular Jewish tradition which I'm probably part of. My drawing line, which is
very clear, cuts the shape. It is a definite closed line which lends itself to
cutting."(The Big Book of Illustrators, p.120).
Though close to his father,
and influenced by the handiwork and craft embedded in the trade, there is no
doubt David was especially close to his mother whose figure had penetrated many
of his works. She was exceptionally talented in traditional womenÕs crafts like
sewing, knitting and crochet. Her changing yet unfailing portrayal as the
woman/wife/mother figure that appears persistently in a multitude of
compositions and forms in his work is unavoidable.
We see her present in
family scenes that populate his watercolors and drawings during the 70's: the
figure of a mother lying on a sofa or a bed in a simple looking room and the
little child peeping from behind the open door; the motherly character in
numerous intimate and ironic scenes in the "Balcony" series. Soon
after, in the Dead Sea paintings, she makes her appearance in the woman's role
in of social and matrimonial interactions that take place against the static,
morbid and powerful, landscape. When Gerstein decides to create sculptures, the
first cardboard cutout he makes, is inspired by his early childhood memories of
his mother riding bicycles. In later even recent paintings she appears as a
different persona in each – once as the woman-child, both innocent and
seductive, once as the reclining lover, once as the embodiment of the
Jewish-Polish mother.
Gerstein's entire
adolescence was absorbed with painting and with scenes and landscapes of urban
houses and streets of the suburban town as well as those of the big city
-– Tel Aviv. He and his brother were both immersed in art from the age of
four. Painting was their mutual inclination and hobby while they were child
protŽgŽ as far as art was concerned.
His brother Yoni was the
first to travel to Paris after his military service and immediately enrolled in
the Beaux-Arts, where he was much appreciated and praised. David followed him
two years later. One can depict the image of twins in several early works by
David Gerstein. In all of these the image of the twins has a certain sinister
and uneasy atmosphere about it. They are dressed alike and they either cling to
each other or are situated very closely together as if someone has glued them
together. Their expression is an unhappy one: "I used to draw lots of
identical twins in my paintings in order to break free, like
exorcism."(The Big Illustrators", p.120). A few years after returning from Paris, Yoni became
religious and disconnected himself completely from his family and previous
life. Gerstein: "Since then an immense gap opened between usÉAlthough he has returned to painting and does illustrations
for religious books and caricatures for newspapers of the Orthodox community,
he had relinquished all independent judgmentÉ It is heart breaking to see how
Yoni's immense talent is being wasted awayÉ"(Jerusalem, 22/8/97)
Between Pop and a hard place
In the mid-sixties, when
he was twenty-one years old, Gerstein started his art studies at Bezalel School
of Art in Jerusalem. Bezalel was then more graphics and craft oriented than
pure plastic arts oriented. He studied for a year, overcome by the feeling
it was not enough and that these were not the art studies he had wished for. He
felt things were too confined and set apart from the international scene.
Subsequently, he decided to break away and go abroad with the hidden wish to
"conquer" the world. Paris was his first obvious destination. He
joined other Israeli artists at the time, most of them his senior, such as Lea
Nikel, Yehiel Shemi and Igal Tumarkin, who had also wished to break away from
the narrow borders of the local Israeli art scene, and had found their way to
Paris, the pre-war capital of art. Between 1966-1968 Gerstein studied at the
Beaux-Arts School of Art where he labored on acquiring the very
"profession" of painting, as he says, in its most classical and
traditional sense. He took part, as a student, in the Parisian Student
Revolution of 1968, working on posters and propaganda leaflets. He discovered Bonnard and his use of color, post-impressionist
painting and French painting of the second half of the 20th Century,
such as that of the painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet and his Art Brut. In
Paris he met the Israeli painter Avraham Ofek, as well.
He knew Ofek from Bezalel.
When he came to enroll in the Art Department at Bezalel, it was Ofek who gave
him his entry exam: "After a quarter of an hour of model drawing he told
me to go and sign in." Now in
Paris they roamed the city
At the end of 1968,
Gerstein left Paris, making the "Big Apple" his new home. He enrolled
in the Art Students' League, but more importantly, he was there, in the midst
of the art and culture buzz of the late 60s, with Pop Art, Hyper Realism, the
Flower Generation, Performing and Happening art and others.
The artistic happenings
that were taking place in galleries, museums, and on the street, day and night,
fully captured his entire being. He absorbed the overwhelming vibrating
artistic thrill, which much later would turn up in his own works. The art scene
was ruled by artists like Jasper Johns who took abstract representative graphic
signs such as numbers, letters, or symbols and turned them into pictorial
compositions, revealing their painterly nature as images, while denying their
symbolism and subjective identification. Dennis Oppenheim, the Conceptualist
sculptor took his large-scale sculptures out of the galleries into open spaces.
Claus Oldenburg, like other Pop artists, rehabilitated the object by taking the
most mundane, commercial products, radically changing their scale, and imbuing
them with artistic and critical qualities. Towards the end of the 60's,
Conceptual art started to rule the American art scene, led by artists like Sol
LeWitt and Yves Klein who insisted that the idea was the most important aspect
of the work of art, more than the means of achieving it and more than the work
of art itself.
Gerstein was taken by the
spirit of American art, which was full of diverse energies, splashing colors and
bursting forms. However, he stood aloof from the conceptualists who adhered to
words and ideas. He wished to
create an object. He wanted to produce art in the traditional sense – art
which has a physical presence in the world and which may start as the most
abstract idea, but must materialize finally as a concrete being: "Since I
was a child I wanted to make an object, something tangible to which people can
relate, and use painting as a space for depicting objects. Remaining in the
realm of concept has never meant art, for me personally." Albeit, he did
join the underlying debate of 20th century art between the
figurative and the abstract, and gave it his own independent interpretation,
especially in his later sculpture series from the 80's onwards.
The 70's –
Clinging to the Narrative
In the early 70Õs Gerstein returned to Israel,
where the spirit of Minimalism and Conceptualism had started to reign over the
local art scene, almost bypassing the Pop revolution in the full American or
European sense. These did have both an important and fascinating influence on
the work of artists like Igal Tumarkin, Henry Shelesnyak, Raffi Lavie, Yair
Garbouz and Zvi Tolkovsky, but ultimately was channeled into the hands of
conceptualism and Protest art. Gerstein: "When I returned from New York I was still very young. I
immediately began teaching at Bezalel and I had to make a crucial decision for
myself as an artist: should I turn to what is popular and accepted, meaning the
minimalist or conceptual approaches, or go my own way and be less popular, for
the moment at least.Ó
international approaches, especially
American Pop and Minimalism, took very different directions and interpretations
among Tel Aviv and Jerusalem artists. And so he writes in the chapter "Two
Cities with Two Epistemologies, 1970-1985", in One Hundred Years of Art in
Israel: "During the late sixties there still existed a discernible
artistic dichotomy between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; especially, between
myth-related art and essentially anti-mythical art [É] Many articles by art and
literature criticsÉ depicted Jerusalem as a romantic city that takes notion to
a near metaphysical extreme, with Tel Aviv portrayed as prosaic and
ironical." (p. 257-258). Even the approach of conceptual artists in
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv was different and stemmed from diverse cultural
approaches. (Ofrat: 266-268).
Indeed, when Gerstein first
arrived in Jerusalem, starting his art studies at Bezalel School of Art (since
the mid 70's, The Bezalel Academy for Art and Design), he was immediately drawn
to the contrasting beauty and allure of the city – so different from that
of Tel Aviv – and began to paint themes which are connected to and rise
from its unique and forceful ambiance. At that time, his realistic style had
touches of na•ve and primitive painting, and he made many paintings of the
city's landscapes, especially its outskirts of hills, cypresses and olive trees
or indoor ambiances of old stone houses. Observing his landscape paintings from
this period, one finds a fascinating connection to the works of his seniors
like Ofek, Bezem, Marcel Janco and others in the geometric-cubist partitions,
in the usage of symbolic images which are submerged in
the scenery and in the monochromatic-brownish palette.
The more
"popular" path in Israeli art at the time was the conceptual and/ or
minimalist one, partly because of New York Art scene influence, and partly but
more importantly because of the growing need to make political-social art which would
respond to the reality in Israel and not ignore it or idealize it. It was
significant to Gerstein to deal with his own biography, with his own story, and
to do it his own way. He was a narrative-figurative painter with a local
orientation and in this sense an outsider, very much like Avraham Ofek, whose
circle Gerstein followed. Whatever the criticism had been and there has
ÉGerstein, a young artist whose works we have started to see in
galleries in the last two years, presents a mature exhibition which shows a
technical knowledge of transmitting experiences and world-views in an
interesting way." (Davar Newspaper)
Just two years after
settling in Jerusalem in 1971 and starting to teach at Bezalel Academy as a
senior lecturer, Gerstein took yet another break and left for London for two
years of post-graduate studies at St. Martin's School of Art. While in London, he did mainly etchings
that summarized his preoccupation with Mexican painting. He was especially influenced by the
work of the Mexican artist Jose Luis Cuevas. Cuevas, a self-taught artist and
master printer played
a pivotal role in Latin America's drawing and printmaking renaissance of the
sixties and seventies. He is also associated with Latin America's
neo-figurative movement, along with artists such as Fernando Botero and Antonio
Segui. Cuevas has said that his drawing represents the solitude and isolation
of contemporary man and man's inability to communicate. It is for this reason
that he often distorts and transforms the human figure. This sensation of
solitude and human reclusion can be found in all Gerstein's works from that
period, till the very late 70's. Its peak reflected in the "Balconies"
series.
The "Balconies"
include a large number of introspective oil paintings, etchings and drawings.
The series was first exhibited in August 1980 at the Horace Richter Gallery in
Old Jaffa, both as a memory of his childhood and as homage to Tel Aviv, presenting
a culmination of his work created during the 70's. Characterized by a
monochromatic palette of colors, the paintings in the series are populated by
dramatic, almost theatrical, intimate scenes taking place inside urban
apartments and viewed from their balconies. The light, the shades, and the
architectural style – all play a part in those early, semi-realistic
paintings. In more than one way, Gerstein's early staging and treatment of the
characters that predominate his works during the 70's brings to mind the world
of the Israeli playwright Hannoch Levin.
The sardonic atmosphere of
the series is most poignant and absurd. Yona Fischer, one of the most prominent Israeli art curators wrote in
the introduction to the catalogue that followed the exhibition: "Three
stories, balcony facing balcony. House no.1 relaxes in the shade of house no.2
which is exposed to the sun. They are all each other's neighbors; all well
barricaded one against another. Everyone, with passive curiosity, spies on
everyone else, a frozen expression between naps, a glance that never meets a
glanceÉFrom his hiding place behind a window, he stares directly at, above or
beneath the balcony opposite, stopping to record, as with camera's click, both
horizons of the railing, the boundary between the revealed and the hidden,
between the outside and in, between the street and darkened apartment. The
marking of a strange living space, a kind of tiny, serene zoological botanical
cage."
stage-like world of the grown-ups, the
Jewish-Polish generation of holocaust survivors. In these works, he portrays
the very specific life style then and the small grotesque and sarcastic
interactions between people against the surreal or apocalyptic backdrop of the
Dead Sea: "It was a closed world which fascinated me as a child and later
as a mature artist recollecting his childhood memories."
Levin constantly criticized
Israeli society and its mainstream ideology while simultaneously confronting
the basic human and existential issues of life and death (" the Labor of
Life", Selected plays, /Translated by Barbara Harshav, Introduction by
Freddie Rokem, Stanford University Press, 2003). Levin's characters are extreme
in their loneliness, in their mediocrity, in their dead-end situations. In
paintings such as 5559_12582 or 5559_12587, which are part of the Dead Sea
paintings, a middle-aged couple is shown in each: the woman is in the foreground and the man is in the
background, almost unseen, either on his back in the oily water of the Dead Sea
or with his head peeping out from far away. The woman's look is desperate,
motionless like the scenery behind them. In 12582 The woman at the forefront of
the painting, who has a somewhat grotesque or over stressed wifely appearance,
gazes puzzled at the spectators or at the painted characters while her
expression is numb and lifeless. In the back, in the fading water, is the
almost disappeared figure of an elderly man – her husband. The use of
fields of a monochromatic bright palette creates an atmosphere of haziness and
stress.
Gerstein himself refers
constantly to Levin when thinking about this period. The curator Nomi Aviv, in her various articles on Gerstein's
works, emphasizes time and again the connection between the Gersteinian world
and the world of Hannoch Levin "Of the people in Gerstein's sculpture it
can be said that 'they walk in the light' as opposed to Hannoch Levin's figures
which "walk in darkness'. (Nomi Aviv, 2003, ÒDavid Gerstein works public
space". p.36). The mention of Levin in connection with Gerstein, and his
caricature like images, is not new. A Gersteinian 'walker ' 'walks as part of a
universal plan that cannot be revealed' to quote Levin.
Revolving doors – An Artist and a
Critic
The Israeli art scene of the 70's
and 80's was dominated by Minimalism, Conceptualism and Action Concept, as well
as by the Italian Arte Povera, all reaching their peak in the exhibition
"The Want of Matter" curated by Sara Breitberg-Semel
It had a local connection unlike the conceptual
art, which tried to runaway from the local and was at the time completely taken
after things that were done in New YorkÉ We did not think we were wonderful,
but we tried to figure out what is more right, and we believed that art should
produce an object and not adocumentation of something
that goes on in the artist's head. I didn't feel I'm defending conservative
views, and that there was a new painting and we were looking for the past. I
had my own contemporary models among them Hockney, Jim Daal, and Pop Art. I
believed in an art which is an object not a text." ("Last Tango in
Paris", by Yuval Zohar, Jerusalem, 16/2/2001)
The group served its aim by
making a statement in the local art world, even if it meant a mostly
antagonistic and critical one Although it broke up fairly quickly and did not
heed to a rigid ideology, it managed to stir up a short debate: Raffie Lavie,
one of the70's and 80's most influential figures in the Israeli Art scene, an
artist, a teacher and an art-critique, wrote a harsh negative column on the
group's activity and approach to art. Gerstein, in return, wrote several
letters to the Kol Hair editors criticizing the art critics' endorsement of a
singular artistic pervasive credo. The Jerusalem Kol Ha'ir, along with its Tel
Aviv twin – Ha'ir, were local newspapers, young daring and influential.
Both newspapers dedicated a considerable number of columns to culture and art. The editor of the Kol Ha'ir newspaper
at the time, Yossi Klein, found Gerstein's letters unusually well written and
interesting. He approached Gerstein and offered he write his own art column, as
a critic. At first Gerstein felt
reluctant to accept the offer since it meant criticizing his fellow artists.
However, his initial assignment was writing about the unique Ingres exhibition
at the Israel museum. This presented a tempting opportunity with no foreseen
consequences or upheavals in the local art scene. He started writing and
continued for the next year and a half with growing popularity. As a critic, he
made his own voice heard – a voice which was very much contrary to the
predominant trends. He supported and encouraged the more narrative and
representational artists like Yosef Hirsch.
Writing became more and
more demanding and time consuming, and Gerstein decided to quit. Yet it did not
take long till he was invited to write again, this time by Adam Baruch, the
editor of Yedioth Aharonot. Baruch was a prominent figure in journalism and in
art writing at the time. He entirely adhered to Conceptual art, and still
appreciated Gerstein's stance as an art critic who favors a fundamentally
different kind of art. Gerstein wrote in Yedioth Aharonot about the local scene
while Baruch himself wrote about the New York art scene.
the newspaper. His column was called "The Couch
Museum". The name "Couch Museum" expressed the laid back, good
humored, free approach of Gerstein as an art critic, which is not without irony
and cynicism. Gerstein would ask an artist for images and sometimes even a text
and present the images as the center.
Gerstein: "Looking
back at I was always interested in exorcising the demons by being on the other
side and I was always interested in the dynamics of the art world." In his
writing, he concentrated on the ability of the art critic to advance and
encourage artists whose work he valued.
Simultaneously, he immersed
himself in yet another area of activity, that of book illustration. The
lightness of his line, the sensibility of his water colors and the permanent
funny component of his figures and compositions paved his success in the field.
His first book was "Siamina and the Cats of Yemin Moshe" written by
Uri Orlev, who approached him and asked him to create illustrations. In 1979 he
received the Israel Museum's Ben Yitzhak Award for the Illustration of a
Children's Book for this work. Since then he has illustrated twelve children's
books. Even so, he was yet to return to painting and to discover sculpting.
It All Begins with Drawing in Space
Picasso, the great Modernist father, is by far the
greatest Artistic influence on David Gerstein. David Gerstein does not stand
alone in this. Picasso influenced almost every artist in the twentieth century,
European and American alike, both Abstract Expressionists and Pop artists, in
his Neoclassical-like sculptural paintings and drawings, as well as in his
cubist deconstruction and super-imposition. He influenced those who wished to
deal with the human figure as their major referential subject matter as well as
those who wanted to deal with form: "Picasso was the great modern
fountain" (De Kooning, p.108)
In the late 1980's,
beginning of the 1990's, Gerstein's personal orientation started to shift from
embracing localism towards more universal themes. His heroes changed gradually
and so had international art. German Neo-Expressionism signified a return to
painting. Conceptualism was slowly changing face into installation and video,
while Minimalism such as Frank StellaÕs became more color and movement
oriented. Gerstein witnessed this
change first-hand during his visit to the large-scale retrospective of Stella
at MoMA in New York in 1987, and was thoroughly moved and inspired by this.
elements demonstrate StellaÕs interest in expanding the
exploration of the third dimension. (The Concept of Space in Twentieth Century
Art, Christopher
W. Tyler and Amy Ione, p. 7.).
Gerstein began developing
his own sculptural-pictorial language in the 1980's. When exhibiting the
"Balconies", Richter, the owner of the gallery and an old friend of
Gerstein, teased and reproached him that his paintings are too gloomy and
morbid and his colors are too somber. As he left, the words infiltrated his
mind: "Why not change everything, why not challenge his own convictions
and habits".
It is a distinct
characteristic of Gerstein to continually reassess himself, challenge his art
and pay attention not to feel too comfortable, too at ease, almost religiously
abstaining from stagnation. The major substantial shift was his move from
painting to three-dimensional sculpture. At this time Israel was experiencing
an economic boom, capitalism in its most relentless form had reached Israeli
society, giving rise to the swift establishment of a nouveau riche class, to an
increasing gap between social classes, and to the reign of consumer society and
popular culture. It was then that Gerstein returned to the studio, this time as
a sculptor.
He began playing with
three-dimensional sculptures that retained their two dimensional features. As
in the paintings, he started with family depictions, couples scenes, still-life
and local landscapes. They were one of a kind, handmade sculptures created out
of plywood and cardboard painted with colored pencils: "I decided I must
make a change in my art. In the beginning of the 80's I started with the idea
of cutouts made of cardboard and aluminum. Everything stood still and I sold
nothing. The thoughts that I might be making a critical mistake did not leave
me for a moment, especially because the response of family and friends to the
change in my art. But I had a good
feeling in the sense that I was glad to get up in the morning and go to the
studio to make cut-out sculptures. I felt less happy when I went to paint. So
between 1980 to 1987 I made half a year cutouts and in the other half, I
painted." His cutouts were populated by human figures and as well
limbs, present, in many ways
the very essence of the Gersteinian figure –
long, goofy, nervous man, always in frenetic motion. At the same time it is, of
course, a tribute and a parody to Duchamp's "Nude Descending the
Stairs." In 1985 he decided to take his sculptures and paintings and show
them in New York. There, in contrast to Israel at the time, painting was making
a fabulous comeback. Gerstein was enchanted and encouraged. He divided his time
in New York between gallery visits and working on a series of cutouts of
colorful cats, which were received enthusiastically by one New Yorker artists'
agent. Requests were coming in and Gerstein, who meanwhile had returned to
Israel, started to work on a series of cats – still one of a kind –
which paid homage, in their style of coloring, to various modernist artists like
Van Gogh and Picasso.
Following the cats'
cutouts, the curator Ayala Gordon approached him and offered him a
solo-exhibition at the Youth Wing in the Israel Museum that same year. At first
he did not know whether to accept the offer, since he did not want to be associated
with childrenÕs art. But once he agreed, the exhibition, turned into a large
show including his latest wood relieves, cardboard and aluminum sculptures. The
exhibition was called "From Dudu to 3-D" and in the publicity ads
"M Descending the Stairs" in its aluminum version appeared. Gerstein,
in his serious-humorous style wrote in the "artist-class" column in
Maariv newspaper: "To Mr. Du (two in Hebrew) dimension and Mrs. Tlat
(three in Hebrew) dimension a new baby was born in 1982 and his name is
"Du-Du Dimension". "Du-Du Dimension" was created as a
possible solution to my search for means of translating my painting into
sculpture without losing my identity as a painter. Two two-dimensional planes
standing vertical one to each other permit the preservation, on the one hand,
of the painterly colorfulness and textural quality, and on the other hand, of
the spatial depth that endows the object its sculptural qualities..."
The exhibition was very
successful and placed Gerstein and his new style at the center of public
attention. It presented the evolution of his sculpture cutouts from cardboard
planes to aluminum sculptures, from their surfaces painted first with
water-colors or colorful pencils and then painted with superlac colors on a
rough surface of color mixed with sand, which blurs the colors' clearness,
giving the sculptures a monochromatic appearance (later, in the 90's, he would
concentrate on smooth and bold acrylics). The subjects of the sculptures were
straightforward: mundane objects and images such as vases and cats, in addition
to paraphrases of well known works of art: "Dudu Dimension is a wild one
who teases the history of art in a consciously mischievous manner. He
dresses-up like stylized art cats (Miro, Bottero, Chagall), he runs down the
stairs like the young Marcel Duchamp, or jumps into a pool with Hockney-like
white splashes. In spite of his outwardly light nature and the irony that
characterizes him, DuDu-Dimension bares a core of serious thought"
(Maariv, 13/03/87).
In the series that
immediately followed, "Frames", "Totems" and
"Eyeballs", he deconstructed different geometric forms as
the artist himself.
Gerstein shifted slowly
from creating wood and cardboard sculptures by hand to steel and laser cut
works. It happened by chance, as he was invited, in 1995 to make a souvenir
object for an ethnographic exhibition at the Israel Museum. He investigated the
possibility of using laser cut and from then onwards he began working with this
technology continuously. It was then, in the mid 90's, that he started to
produce sculptures in large series, hand-painted and sometimes screen-printed.
His monochromatic palette transformed, embracing much more radiant, bold and
splashy colors. His themes became universally oriented, depicting human
activities in a playful, joyful, sometimes ironic, but always
vibrant manner.
Today, the
image is first drawn by Gerstein on paper. It is then translated into
the computer which, in turn, becomes the program for the laser cutting of the
steel. Although the usage of a technologically advanced procedure, the hardcore
of Gerstein's work has remained the drawing process as is his joy of working
with pencils, watercolors and charcoal. It is the endless, obsessive drawing
that spawns the creative process. The strong presence of the drawing preserves
the spontaneity, the automatic element and child-like spirit of the works, even
when produced in heavy metal. These bring to mind Elizabeth Murray's playful
assemblages of color and shapes. In other instances, like in
"Splash"(1998), his handwriting echoes the cold, detached line and
color-drenched palette of David Hockney. Hockney, whose work in the 1960's was
referred to, by some critics, as illustrative, said in response: "In the mid-60's, many people
thought art has nothing whatsoever to do with illustration, and often if you
used the word it was as a "put-down". Yet I knew perfectly well that
many great things are illustrative. Rembrandt's Bible Illustrations, for
example. Hogarth was, of course, a great illustrator. What about Bruegel, Goya
and Daumier? I deliberately annoyed many people by insisting that a lot of
great art is illustration." (p.17, Hockney Paints the Stage, Martin
Friedman, Walker Art Center Minneapolis Abbeville Press Publishers New York,
1980).
The works depart from the
subjective towards a collective self in a subtle manner, especially in pieces
from 2002 like "Do Man", "Horizontal Couple",
"U-Man", "Birds Man" and "Egg Man, where the line
between innocence and experience changes suddenly, flickering
: "Pretty, pretty robin!/ Under leaves so green/ A happy blossom/
Hears you sobbing, sobbing./ Pretty pretty robin!/ Near my bosom. (William
Blake, The Blossom, Songs of Innocence).
Impressionism
on Steel
By using handmade brushes
and repetitive vertical hand gestures, Gerstein captures the physical sensation
of the eye perceiving the world, the light and the motion around us. He does this in an impressionist style,
repeating the same scene time and again. However, instead of oil paint on
stretched canvas, he uses epoxy car-paints on hard and cold steel, usually in
several layers.
Through intensive drawing
which precedes each work he conjures up images of figures, of still-life
composition, of urban landscapes, all of which are connected to modern life,
especially resonating the rush and pulse/buzz felt in the big city.
The high speed and movement
felt by the multiplicity of lives inhabiting the metropolis is a major modern
theme that fascinated artists throughout the 20th century –
painters, sculptors, video artists and performance artists alike tried to
capture the pulse of hectic activity and an alienated environment. Ferdinand
Leger wrote: "The [city] is free "full in its truthness", see
the drama of the epos figures who are usually called the inventor, the artist,
the poetÉ Life of fragments: a
and his use of radiant
complementary colors; Giacomo BallaÕs Futuristic dismantling of the
picture-surface into facet-like fragments in
order to capture and perceive the rhythm; Raul HausmannÕs Dadaist spirit of
spontaneity depicted in his
collages of modern life and technology. Gerstein takes all this in and
generates a flow of crystal-clear images he hand-paints on steel. Some are
extremely simple and deprived, at first glance, of a specific context like a
still-life of an open window with a plate with lemons or flowers in a vase,
which could be anywhere. Yet, on second consideration, one notices they hold
unique modest local Israeli nuances as in "Table with Cactus" (2003)
in which a Mediterranean scene is portrayed with a few light captivating lines
or rather by a few cuts in hard steel, and then a small twist – instead
of a blossoming flower like in a painting by Raul Dufy, the cactus plant
appears, which is very Middle Eastern and symbolic of the reality in Israel, or
the cypresses that are typical to Jerusalem's landscape. Other compositions
play along with the opposite sensation, that of abundant, chaotic, nervous and
constantly in movement Post-Modernist mass-culture and way of life. However, this
is done in an overt Modernist freedom of perception, color and form. Thus, he
both adheres to aesthetic visual elements and relates to the general condition
of man.
As a successor of the
Modernist spirit and its incarnation in Pop Art, Gerstein is influenced by the
search for breaking down the borders between different forms of expression like
visual art, music and poetry, while disengaging from the subjective self and
subjective interpretation. He repeatedly translates
rhythm and music into abstract strokes and forms, deals with the limits of
painting and the way we perceive reality.
He elaborates on bridging
the gap between the figurative, now already identified with his own
characteristics, and the free form/ free line by using pure abstract notions such
as music and rhythm. He constantly experiments with the notion of form through
the use of duplications and mirroring. Never taking anything for granted, he
wishes to break the rigidity of the geometric form of the canvas.
In "No Favorite
Color" (2002), a street installation, he confronts the act of painting
itself and creates a Dada-like celebration of creativity and of the autonomy of
art, using half-human color-tubes, with hands, legs and bodies, and paint in
bold colors pouring out, all dancing feverishly to unheard sounds. However,
this festive mode reveals an additional aspect, one that is in some ways dark,
manic and nightmarish, which gives the installation's presence the clear twist
of something outside the conventional order of the events taking place
underneath the innocent colorful pageant.
a polyphony of color and
line, as depicted in his series ÒTango Sur SeineÓ. This
Gerstein made this series
while staying at the Cite Studios the summer of 2000. It is interesting to
compare this series to another one conceived in Paris in the early 90's, ÒThe
Car SeriesÓ. Both sprang from a series of photographs. It is representational
and realistic, much more than the tango series, at least at first glance. It
traces the reflection of the city's trees and buildings on windowpanes while
simultaneously depicting intimate scenes taking place in the interior of cars
– all placed in a Parisian setting. The atmosphere is sober and
contemplative, dealing with sensations of enclosure and alienation. At the same
time, Gerstein is thoroughly engaged with perception in this work. He does this
by tracing light, colors and forms as they are reflected in the windows of the
car and influenced by its movement. However, in spite of the realistic
approach, many of the situations are imaginative and deceiving – are the
figures there or not? What are they doing? Is this about the nature of human
relationships and about the power of the city and its influence on the people
living in it?
Gerstein's most recent
paintings bring together an abstract, colorful composition and figurative
imagery that emerges out of flat, geometric lines and patches. The result in
works like "Outside the City" (2005), ÒLandscape with Chair"
(2005) or "Girl Friends" (2005) is a celebration of painting, both
realist and abstract, which does not relinquish Gerstein's affiliation with the
local landscape.
Gerstein's sculptural
protagonists are all in motion – walking, running, riding bicycles,
driving cars, playing ball, skiing, dancing, – even his first wood
sculptures like "M descending" and "The Modular Head".
Never at rest, seldom introspective, they are always outwardly orientated,
giving rise to a hectic, although unthreatening mode of being.
elements of volume and space created inside a group of people engaged in a
sports activity. I try to trace and reenact the visual illusions which change
constantly, even in a scientific mode."
Breath in, Breath out – Outdoor
Sculptures
"I especially like working on outdoor sculptures since they force
me to confront technical problems of a different nature. I must consider the
location, the environment, the mode of living or working of people there, it's
extremely challenging for me and this is very important to my continual
evolvement as an artist". In the environmentally oriented sculpture
"Things That Come from the Heart" (2000), figurative elements like
the birds and the cactus plants are born out of popish cut-outs of human shapes
in basic light colors standing in a row. The images are "basic" in
their appearance, and this enables Gerstein to play with them in the open space
as well as offer the same playfulness to passers-by. This series alludes
unconsciously to Pop artist Jim DineÕs "Two Big Black Hearts" made of
bronze and placed in DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. While Dine's hearts
are intense and textural, Gerstein's are airy and flat.
Gerstein's outdoor
sculptures can be found in public places all over Israel and abroad. They
present a distinctive appeal: On the one hand, they are not reproducible like
the large series of the wall sculptures, on the other hand, they reach the
largest audience and so lead to a different perspective on the issue of the
complex relations between original and copy in art. Furthermore, they emanate
from the same motives that Gerstein uses in his wall-sculptures and small
objects, but here these elements are assigned a larger-than-life scale that
increases their poetic gesture and magic-like being. One of the most
self-referential sculptures, of this kind, is "Ladder of Motives"
(1994), placed at the Open Museum Tefen. In it one can find the entire span of
images used by Gerstein such as the flower vase, the cactus, the cypresses, the
walking figure, the donkey, the bird – all meeting each other in the most
harmonious manner, facing one another in the open air – telling the story
of his art work, its syntax and its natural growth out of the local landscape.
The presence of an object in a public space is extremely vulnerable – it
can be imposing and disturbing, or it can be decorative and playful –
still it must be engaging.
Nomi Aviv begins her
article accompanying the catalogue "David Gerstein: Works in Public
Space" with the following significant observation: "Gerstein has
changed the spirit of environmental sculpture in Israel. No more the enigmatic
object
it
contrasts with the location and stands out.
However, the irony is never
imposing, and can be taken into consideration or left out – depending on
the viewers' choice, as in the "Flowers Island" (1998) placed on a
central avenue in the city of Herzelia, "Cow" (1998) placed in
Ra'anana municipal park or the "Digital Cactus" (2002), which was presented
in Haifa as part of an outdoor Mediterranean sculpture project. The sculpture
"Soul Bird" (2002), placed at a childrenÕs playground in the city of
Holon, is about the resonance of the human soul, its vividness and contrasting,
changing moods. The work contains both the literal and the symbolic sense of
the story, and itself has the feel of a playground facility in the form of a
big hollow yellow bird, ideal and serene, whose inside has windows populated by
restless Gersteinian figures, dancing, running, searching in and out of their
bodies. This tension keeps the viewer attentive and sensitive, allowing the
sculpture to be a part of the viewer's daily world and thus part of his private
imagery.
A Visual Magic Wand
Gerstein has a tremendous drive to paint. This
drive makes him a ceaseless artist who constantly checks his limits and probes
his tools. At the same time he wishes his art would fly on its own wings,
letting it incarnate in sculptures, cutouts, designed objects, jewelry and on
and on until eternity. He uses his visual magic wand of line, color and
movement in a sumptuous manner. For this purpose, he vacillates between
painting and sculpture and makes a deliberate reduction of figures and images.
Indeed, he has never given up painting even in the midst of creating only
sculptures but he examines the limits and nature of painting through sculpture
by using time and again the same themes in many variations. His familiarity
with the range of 20th century art is attested to in numerous
examples of his work that incorporate Western Art's most celebrated themes and
techniques. Simultaneously, the universal and timeless nature of his art today
is nurtured continuously by the history of Israeli painting. It alludes to its
imagery, moreover to the human landscapes of Israel through the decades.
Gerstein has always been
motivated by a sense of adventure, even mischief. Often he came to conscious
artistic decisions, which brought him to make remarkable shifts and turns in
his work. One such major shift was his turn to sculpture.
As a sculptor-painter, he invites the viewer to stroll along in a transparent and penetrable visual world of art, which gives itself over into the hands of the passer by. The secret rhythm, abundant colorfulness and the form in never seizing movement are realized through his individual virtuosic figurative syntax and his endless allusions to the history of Modern art. In his constant, outward repetition of motives, as well as in his serial productions of sculptural artifacts, he relinquishes the uniqueness of the work of art for the sake of spreading it out like seeds in the air. He invites the viewers to follow his steps, to endorse art and enjoy the visual experience once more, thus enjoy and endorse life itself: "Art interests more than reality. Other people are captured by thought on the work of God. I am connected to patches, colors, shapes. This is my obsession." (to add his solitary stance in Israeli art).
Gerstein has charted his
own way, while constantly shifting positions and viewpoints – as an
artist and a teacher but also as an appraised art-critic and as a successful
mass-production designer. His evolving artistic choices and associations enable
us to look at the unique path that he has taken in the Israeli art scene over
the years, and the various phases and changes his art has witnessed.
|
