Ofir Dor and Marik Lechner exhibition in Tel Aviv’s Helena Rubenstein Pavilion
Posted on July 28, 2007 • By Emily Lutzker
Category: Art and Culture, Featured |
The sun may be brightly shining outside in Tel Aviv, but upon stepping into the two person painting exhibition at the Helena Rubenstein Pavilion at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, there is an immediate reminder that psychic life can be dark and sometimes even frightening. The pairing of these two artists in one exhibition is remarkable: on first glance there seems to be little connection, but on further exploration the similarities emerge. The paintings of both Ofir Dor and Marik Lechner depict worlds that live inside the mind. A multi-faceted moodiness shown in allegorical themes are present in both, but particular to each artist’s own respective experiences, the paintings are universal on a much broader scale, as well.
Dor, born in Israel, gained notoriety quickly after his graduation from Bezalel; Lechner, born in the USSR and emigrating here at the age of six, was educated at the Midrasha School of Art at Beit Berl College , and experienced a slower ascent to success. At this time, both artists are building momentum on the Israeli and international art scene. Both have recently participated in art fairs around the world, and in this way are exemplary of what is happening in Israel. Five years ago the visibility of Israeli galleries and Israeli artists outside of Israel was slim, and since then it has been steadily growing, with the artists and the dealers gaining recognition in Europe and the US. Aside from the economic and social growth of Israel as a whole, I would attribute the escalating dialog between Israeli and Western art as key to this phenomenon. Both of the featured artists live and work in Tel Aviv, which is a city that looks towards international communication, and these artists and the art community at large is doing just that, in leaps and bounds.
Ofir Dor - painting noir
On inspection of the exhibition, we first encounter Dor’s work which is presented on the lower two levels of the exhibition space. If there was ever a style that could be called “painting noir,” this is it. Not only are the images themselves wrought with frozen moments of peculiar storytelling - dream-like scenes that are familiar and yet strange - but with brushstrokes and sentiment reminiscent of the German expressionists. To describe the rich colors of these paintings as “warm” is a giant understatement - they verge on red-hot, contrasted by the deep dark tones of the settings. This creates an overall feeling of nightclub chiaroscuro, a kind of almost hard-boiled Edward Hopper, with the light intensely bright, seeming to emanate from one small source, and the remainder of the room richly dark, with figures and objects playing out weird theatrical moments.
In one such work, Meal (2007) several people are shown, sitting at tables. It could be an ordinary café scene, but upon closer inspection, there is an extra figure peering out from an unusual place: a man’s head is pictured right in front of the chest of one of the diners, behind dishes and wineglasses. This interloper and his companion who is at the table properly behind him, watch the other diners with strange intent. In Yellow Dress (2006) a group lingers in a domestic setting; a woman seated centrally wears a shockingly yellow dress that pops out unnaturally for the otherwise dark scene. In front of this group, and partially obscuring it, is another woman who is bending, holding a shoe, almost as if she were about to strike the naked foot of a seated man, who stares at the impending action in confusion.
Marik Lechner - the dark side of elfish fantasy
In great visual contrast to Dor’s work, upstairs and on the mezzanine level hang the psychologically frenzied, but visually light, paintings of Lechner. It takes a few breaths to adjust to the seeming incongruity of the cinematic experience downstairs, but slowly the scattered, almost child-like lines of color come into focus. The works depict figures and creatures - all blurry with movement and the spell that Lechner has cast. These paintings of folklore and fairy-tale motifs capture the dark side of elfish fantasy, and in turn, the dark side of our own innermost imaginary worlds. But don’t be fooled by the dancing lines and shapes: Lechner has skillfully turned the musings of children into eerie signifiers of adult fears.
The Lovebirds (2006 - 2007) illustrates two birds facing each other at the upper two-third horizon line of the painting. They sit above the flowers and the brush, and in front of the gestural trees in the distance. The scene is flattened in a formal sense, and you can almost feel the sparklingly white diffused and energetic light and the chirping and dizziness of the forest. Another work, V.I.P. (2006-2007) is a kind of portrait of someone who might be described as a grim reaper-astronaut. This haunting skeleton of a man holds an overturned bird on his lap within a grey and painterly background. In this otherworldly scene of inner reverie, we wonder who will speak to us: the V.I.P. with his helmeted empty skull? Or the bird, that appears to be a prophet or emissary.
Strikingly, the individual aesthetic of each artist has a unique way of capturing light, very different from one another, but each intensively effective. It is an almost optically shocking contrast: one body of work with his rich deep colors, dramatic lighting and visual depth; the other capturing light in movement, darting and hiding, swirling amongst the paint and forcing brightness to emit from the paintings themselves. But, what these two artists have in common is not only a rich understanding of what painting can tell us about ourselves, but a window to the inner worlds of our mind’s eye, which sometimes holds nightmares. While the style in which these two artists paint is divergent, their backgrounds are less so. As the US was deemed the “melting pot” of different cultures and peoples, Israel shares this. And with each passing year, the cultural exchange that emerges from such a place shifts approaches from looking inward to looking outward; towards being able to share a distinct experience of identity with a familiar and accessible commonality with the rest of the world. In this way, both of these accomplished artists are communicators of the unique Israel experience, and a universal emotional one.
Ofir Dor, Paintings 2004-2007
Marik Lechner, Swan Song
The Helena Rubenstein Pavilion, Tel Aviv
Curated by Varda Steinlauf
About the writer
Originally from New York City, Emily Lutzker is an artist who lives and works in Tel Aviv. In addition to having exhibited in Tel Aviv, New York, London, Miami, Sante Fe and Minneapolis, she teaches art and culture at the Beit Berl College’s Multidisciplinary Studies Program. Previously, she has taught at the New School for Social Research and the Art Studio NY. Lutzker has recently been awarded a grant from the Israeli Department of Artist’s Immigration and has been the recipient of Artist-in-Residence honors at the European Graduate School in Switzerland and St. John’s Pottery in St.Cloud, Minnesota.
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