Foto Friday – Klone alone

August 27, 2010 - 10:07 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Art, Crime, design, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Profiles, Travel 

Tel Aviv. It’s Klone’s city and we’re all just living in it. If graffiti artists are, in fact, masters of all they survey — and tag — then Tel Aviv is ruled by street artist Klone, whose handiwork can be seen almost anywhere you look – or places you usually don’t look: highway barriers, unused billboards and abandoned buildings.

Klone is a recognized member of the world street artist community who has had his work covered by any number of art commentators – the most comprehensive bio I’ve found is by Hagi Kenaan on the Maarav blog. And there’s a nice write up of a 4-man graffiti and street art happening from last summer. He’s participated in group shows in Israel, USA, UK and Europe and Tel Aviv. So Klone is not unknown.

But his work does convey loneliness, isolation and pain. Of it, Klone says, “My work is dealing with memories, my own and the ones I manage to collect in everyday life from surroundings, if its my childhood in USSR or the coming to Israel…”

“…if it’s the layers of the city, walls crumbling apart and graffiti covering and being covered…”

“…people getting old and the new generations appearing every moment, the search is endless. Thus my work of documenting it is still long. I learn a new language that invents itself along my way, I don’t understand its symbolics most of the time and use my skills as a channel to combine all the elements I collect in my everyday into one stream of visuals…

“My work might be on paper, canvas, wood, wall or whatever surface I stumble upon on my way. The story must be told and I hope that one day I will understand it all.”

Klone’s technique often involves creating complex works on tissue-thin paper before venturing outside. The paper is then quickly glued onto the desired surface (as above). His most recent venture was last week — you can see it on Tel Aviv Street Art. More Klones, including artwork done in studio and available for sale, can be viewed on his website.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Nostalgia Sunday – From Zeev to Zeev

April 5, 2009 - 10:55 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: General, Holidays, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture 

Illustrator and comics artist Zeev Engelmayer creates works that are rooted in nostalgia for an Israel gone by. In his new Passover exhibition, “Matza & Tequila” — which opened last week at Tel Aviv’s Urbanix Gallery — Engelmayer displays illustrations, collages, and original hand written texts from the “Engelmayer Haggadah”, ceramics, animations and pieces inspired by the Haggadah, which was published 10 years ago and has now been reissued by the Israel Cartoon Museum.

engelmayer_hagaddah

Engelmayer likes to mix visual references of Israeli culture with combined with cinema images from the 50′s, commercial advertisements, catalog photos and schoolbook illustrations. His text are usually a dopey play on words that nonetheless strike a deeper chord. For example, this picture whose title, loosely translated, is something like, “Behold, the Prom-assed Land.”

engelmayer_land

And this one, entitled “Hametz On the Arava Highway,” which could be a reference to the “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” genre of horror film, or could equally be a comment on the panic demonstrated by vigilant family members trying to rid their homes (or perhaps the world…) of unleavened bread before Passover.

engelmayer_hametz

zeev-farkash1Another exhibition that opened this past week: a retrospective of works by the late Yaakov “Zeev” Farkash, whose cartoons and caricatures were a staple feature in Ha’aretz for 40 years. I remember Zeev from the glory days of Cafe Tamar, a small, modest smiling man who, every year at Passover, created a new and different “Gone On Vacation” sign for proprietor Sarah Stern in his signature pen and ink style. The works — and Sarah– are still there today.

“Matza & Tequila” runs through April 16th at Urbanix, which specializes in urban art and vinyl toys. The Zeev retrospective will be up through June 20th at the Israel Cartoon Museum.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

 

© 2012 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap