The second exhibition of the Litvak Gallery in Tel Aviv establishes the place as one of the solid landmarks of the art scene in the city, and a house of the art glass bringing artists of international reputation. After the first show that gathered works of many contemporary artists of the genre, the second ‘Light and Space in the Garden of Reason’ belongs to Vaclav Cigler. Born in 1929 in Prague, the artist is one of the best known names working in the material nowadays.
Star of David
When entering the gallery the visitor realizes immediately that Cigler’s art is not only about the objects but also about the relation between the objects, the viewer and the environment. On the right-hand wall a large window opens to the landscape of the city of Tel Aviv, and a ‘Star of David’ made of optical glass (the preferred material of the artists) relates the viewer with the outer reality reflected through the work of Cigler. Especially created for this exhibition the ‘Star of David’ is not the only Jewish symbol in the exhibition. Cigler (who is not Jewish) also created a ‘Ladder of Jacob’ made of course of glass, catching the elements of reality as part of the ascending to heaven symbolism.
two spheres
Many of the objects exposed come in pairs. The two spheres play one with the other, catch the images of each other and of the external world and send them back to the viewer.
Clear Pyramid
Cigler invites the viewer to be part of the making of the art experience, by moving permanently, and watching the objects as they change their reflection of self and reality. Such is the feeling with the pyramids, another primary form preferred and often represented by the artist.
Convex and Concave
‘Convex and Concave’ is a game of alternate shapes of mirrors that reflect and change the reality.
reflecting pools (Rippled Surfaces)
The other material Cigler is using beyond glass is water. His reflecting pools like the one where a pulsing pump sends ripples in the rhythm of the heart beats play together with mirrors on the ceiling to create effects of reflection. If you come with friends at the exhibition try playing the games of seeing each other’s reflections in the pools and in the mirrors.
Flower
Even when the object gets apparently closer to a figurative representation it is still a pretext to catch the images around and send them beck to the eyes in unexpected angles.
Block with Circle Segments
In the middle of the exhibition path the visitor can go on the terrace, where a few works play with the urban landscape around the exhibition building, catches, segments and recomposes it. Picasso and the cubists would have loved these games in glass.
Sphere
I would call the final section of the exhibition the Brancusi section. It seems to be not only influenced by Brancusi. I would say that if Brancusi had created in glass, this is the way his works could have looked like.
Spheres
The dark room seems to become a tradition in the exhibitions at the Litvak Gallery. This time we are invited to see, hear, and feel a gathering of colored eggs (the shape of the Beginning of the World at Brancusi!) that seem suspended in darkness in the sounds of un-earthly music. Is this how new universes are born?
Column
The exhibition ends with another work clearly inspired by the Endless Column. Where Brancusi superposed the double pyramids accessing to the sky, Cigler places his prisms, catching the reality around and sending it back in surprising directions. Somehow the feeling is that this universe has more than three dimensions.
The exhibition is open until the end of September. Audio-guides with explanation of each work are available, as well as guided tours that start every time a few visitors gather (at least this is what happened last Friday). The English Web page of the gallery can be found at http://litvak.com/, the Hebrew one at http://www.litvakgallery.co.il/ and the youTube Channel is http://www.youtube.com/litvakgallery.
The last evening of the opera season brought us yesterday to the staging of ‘Pique Dame’ the beautiful creation of Tchaikovsky based on the novella by Pushkin – a story of passion and obsession, which gives the opportunity of great performances to the singers of the principal roles, but also offers beautiful arias and moments of charm and drama to the singers in the supporting roles. The complex story and the staging close to the court of empress Ekaterina allows for Tchaikovsky to include an opera in opera fragment, as well as a glory chorus for the empress, with quotes and bows to the music of the 18th century. The libretto itself written by Tchaikovsky brother and based on Pushkin’s text has many memorable moments with the ‘Life’s a Game’ area in the final scene poignant by both music and words.
Bringing to stage Russian operas comes natural for the team at the New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv. Many of the singers and musicians are born, studied and worked in the former Soviet Union, or belong to families coming from that part of the globe, they are familiar and feel well the Russian music and tradition. The staging here belongs to Theatre Wielki National Opera in Warshaw directed by Mariusz Trelinski. Splendid sets dominated by black and red were created by Boris Kudlicka, and the usage of video projects is inspired and gives the scenes a lyric atmosphere. Ukrainian tenor Viktor Lutsiuk was a good Herman, a role that he brought to Israel already with the opera Marinskiy. Ira Bertman was a beautiful and dignified Lisa, and she gets close to the pick of her career, and to the position of local diva in Tel Aviv. As in many other cases the presence of the young singers coming from the Opera Studio brought freshness and quality to the stage – with Shira Raz and Shira Shafir making the best of the musical opportunities in the roles of the Governess and of Masha.
‘Pique Dame’ ended a season I was a little bit concerned about as it was the season after the anniversary of the renewal of the opera activity in Tel Aviv. It was a good one however – in its second quarter of century of existence the New Israeli Opera shows both maturity as well as allows for the influx of young singers and musicians to express themselves providing innovation and quality.
One of my preferred ways to spend the beginning of a weekend is to visit the art galleries in Tel Aviv. This is what Liliana and me did last Friday, when three interesting exhibitions brought us to the art galleries located in the block of the Ben Yehuda street between the Ben Gurion boulevard and the Gordon street.
the Gerstein Gallery
The Gerstein Gallery at 99, Ben Yehuda hosts first of all permanently the colorful painted metal sculptures of artist David Gerstein.
inside the Gerstein Gallery
The underground level space hosts temporary exhibitions and last Friday I had a last opportunity to see the works of Romanian-born painter Ioan Iacob. Actually the exhibition had closed two days before and I was concerned to miss it, but calling the gallery I had learned the paintings are still there to be seen by visitors, which proved to be true.
Blue Buckets
I confess to have been slightly disappointed by the works in this exhibition. It may be about the selection of the works, it may be about the stage of the development of the artist born in 1954 who lives in Dusseldorf, Germany since 1975. On a small table I could see some other works of him, like an illustrated book of Petre Ispirescu’s fairy tale ‘Tinerete fara Batranete’ which seemed to me more expressive, with a feeling of expressionist angoisse.
Mount Carmel
Many works of Iacob seem to pass a feeling of uneasiness. It is the case of the wild and sick looking dogs represented a few paintings, of the dead nature diptych on a black background (work I liked most in the Tel Aviv exhibition), or the landscapes of mount Carmel which Iacob painted repeatedly probably following a study journey to Israel a few years ago.
the Gordon Gallery
Two houses away we can find the Gordon Gallery. Founded in 1966, the gallery is one of the oldest in Tel Aviv, considered today as an important institution in the development of the Israeli contemporary art.
inside the Gordon Gallery
Among the house artists of the gallery Ukraine-born Joseph Zaritsky was maybe the most famous, and it’s no surprise that the current exhibition is dedicated to him.
'every inch must be a painting'
‘Every inch (or centimeter) must be a painting’ Zaritsky used to say, and the upper floor of the exhibition in the gallery illustrates this concept with details of his works photographed and enlarged to the dimensions of big paintings to show the richness and power of each piece of his paintings. I was only partially convinced.
from the rooftops of Tel Aviv
I liked more the beautiful selection of Zaritsky’s original watercolors exposed at the underground level, some of the best in the rich collection of works of the painters in the possession of the gallery. The many landscapes painted by Zaritsky from the roof of his house in Tel Aviv, representing a city that had not yet developed on the vertical, neither had expanded to swallow and domesticate all the neighboring nature are among the best works of his I know.
the Minotaure Gallery
Crossing the street to 100, Ben Yehuda street we can find one of my preferred galleries, and art places in Tel Aviv.
inside the Minotaure Gallery
The Minotaure Gallery is specialized in Jewish art and artists from the first half of the 20th century. It describes itself on the Web site as a sibling of the gallery with the same name in Paris. This is the place where I dream to see one day an exhibition of the Romanian avant-garde as the Web site talks in the ‘About Us’ page about displaying ‘East European artworks by painters from Ukraine, Russia, Hungary, Romania, and Poland’.
Adolf Hoffmeister exhibition at Minotaure
The current exhibition is dedicated to portraits and collages of the Czech-born painter Adolf Hoffmeister, who was once characterized by Louis Aragon as le plus parisien des Pragois et le plus pragois des Parisiens.
Luis Bunuel
Many of the drawings in the exhibition are ink portraits painted starting from the 20s until the 70s by a painter who frequented the most various art circles in Paris and Europe. Many of his portraits are remarkable, as they catch not only the character of the artist but also of his work. For example a portrait of Giacometti has stylization of the works of the sculptor, Vaclav Havel is caught in the key year 1968 with a confident stare in the future that will come decades later, Ray Bradbury’s portrait has the mechanic look of the future in his works, and Luis Bunuel looks like a character of his latest films about the bourgeoisie.
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall’s portrait bridges between the portraits and collages in the exhibition, with some of the animal icons of his works translated in the language of Hoffmeister.
Kafka and the media
The cycle of works that represent Kafka bring the Czech genius in the context of the realities of the second half of the 20th century, as a sign of contemporaneity and actuality of the author of ‘The Trial’ and of ‘The Castle’.
It is not every day that you get on a tour and the name of the tour guide is Karl. And certainly it is not every time that you hear that the name of Karl was given in sign of respect to no other but the Playboy King Charles (Carol) the 2nd of Romania. Well, king Carol was not exactly the savior of Jews that guide Karl thinks he was (the good deeds he was told about happened during the reign of his son Mihai and belonged actually to Queen Mother Elena, Carol’s divorcee) but it was a good story to start with the tour of the Tel Aviv’s historical central street, the Rothschild Boulevard. Many other stories followed, stories about the buildings, but especially about the people, the very special people who built and lived in this city.
start of the Rothschild Boulevard
The tour (paid for by my employer as art of the Cultural activities of the company) started at the West end extremity of the Rothschild boulevard, at the intersection with the Hertzl street, the very place at the crossroads where Tel Aviv started 101 years ago. It was actually The Crossroad, as the whole city of 294 inhabitants had only these two streets in the first years of its existence. There is little left today but memory of the beginnings, and a kiosk, the first of the series of many that are seeded on the green space that separates the two traffic lanes of the boulevard, and give a special look and style to the boulevard. Those were however built many decades after the city was founded. The French Institute is located today at the same intersection.
the Vogel House
Three ages of building, three different styles marked the first 30 years of the history of the city and of the Rothschild Boulevard. First came the Russians, and their building style is a witness to the slow adaptation of the immigrants coming to Turkish Palestine during the first alyot (waves of immigration). See the house of the Vogel family, close to the end of the street. Balconies, cellars, thick walls made of thermo-isolating bricks, were adapted better to protect the interior from the frozen Russian winter then from the torrid Middle Eastern summer. While the lower level is somehow functional hosting a music club, the upper store and the whole building waits for a renovation to help it survive the years to come.
in front of the Dizengoff House
Our next stop was at the house built by the legendary mayor of the city – Meir Dizengoff. The house became the first art museum of the city while Dizengoff was still alive, and here were hosted the first acquisitions of the fine collection which is time was to become the collection of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The building is however most famous for having hosted one of the crucial events of the modern history of Israel – the proclamation of the independence by David Ben Gurion on 15th of May 1948. It was a good opportunity for Karl to tell us a few more stories related to the historic event and more important or less important people who were involved in it.
the mayor Meir
Mayors nowadays ride Volvos, or maybe bicycles if they are of the modest kind. Meir Dizengoff used to ride a horse and a statue on the boulevard in front of his house remembers the times and the man.
the changing skyline
The landscape of the area is definitely changing at fast pace. While some of the older buildings enter renovation programs every space between the historical buildings and all the spaces behind them seem to have become construction sites. Skyscrapers are either ready, or in construction, or in planning. All big banks and insurance companies seem to build their headquarters here, if they are not already present on location. How much of the old city atmosphere will be preserved? Hard to say – what is sure is that in a few years this area will look completely different and what we saw during this June 2010 evening may be a snapshot of a fast changing reality.
the Shertok (Elyahu Golomb) House
The second style of building that left its print on the face of Tel Aviv and of its most significant street was the Polish style. It was during the 20th that the population of the city grew tenfold, while most of the immigrants came from Poland, rejected by the growing antisemitism and by the fiscal policies of the Polish government. Representative for the Polish style is the house known today as Beit Elyahu, hosting today the Haganah Museum with a special section dedicated to the founder of Haganah Elyahu Golomb. Actually the house belonged initially to the Shertok family, which later will give in Moshe Sharet the second Prime Minister of Israel. The two families were by the way related.
recovering the past
Many of the old buildings are in renovation, some other wait for the initiatives to recover and bring them back to the commercial and touristic circuit. One example of a project under way is the ‘eclectic’ building at the intersection of the boulevard with the Yavneh street, with its combination of Oriental arcades and Russian monastery dome.
the Levine House
The Levine House, also known by locals as the Russian Embassy is one example of such a project that was completed a few years ago. It really hosted the first embassy of the USSR in Israel at the start of the 50s, but later the house fell in neglect to be recuperated in the last decade and acquired and used until recently by Sotheby’s for auctions and exhibitions.
Bauhaus in Tel Aviv
Night had already fallen when we got to the area on the Rothschild boulevard which is dominated by the Bauhaus style of construction, the third classical style of the city and of the street, brought to Tel Aviv by the German Jews immigration wave of the 30s. Tel Aviv is one of the cities with the highest concentration of Bauhaus buildings worldwide and this area is the most representative. I respectfully disagree with the aesthetic opinion of Karl, our guide who considers the style as ‘ugly’ – I find it to be well fit to the dimensions and functionality of the Middle-Eastern cities, and something that is practical and functional cannot be too ugly.
the Pagoda-House
What Karl does like and I do not disagree with him here is the eclectic style, and the tour ended a little bit aside the Rothschild boulevard, in the King Albert Square, where at the intersection of the Nahmani and Montefiore streets we can admire the Pagoda House. A combination of the Western and Oriental styles, the Pagoda House belongs nowadays to a mysterious Swedish millionaire and cannot be visited. It was built by a French architect named Alexander Levy who perished in the Holocaust.
nightlife on the Rothschild Boulevard
The night had fallen on the city during our tour, and the area became more and more populated. It is today one of the principal areas of entertainment in Tel Aviv, the city which represents better than any other city the Israeli culture and spirit, the tolerance and liberalism that was aimed to by the founders of the nation. While driving home we reached the other end of the Rothschild Boulevard, the location where soon the Habima theater will reopen after years of renovation work. The street and the area look different than the small pioneering street where the city started 101 years ago, but it certainly continues to stay in the center of the development and life of the new metropolis.
The last concert of the current Hot Jazz season at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art auditorium was marketed as a Cuban jazz event which is misleading to say the least. This labeling was quite misleading, maybe intentionally trying to bring to this (optional) concert in the series an audience that is not usually part of the regular audiences, but taking into account the number of empty seats Friday night I am wondering if the tactics really worked. Maybe it would have been better to present the Rodriguez brothers as what they really are, a pair of young and solid jazz instrumentalists, with passion and talent. Yes, they happen to be of Cuban origin on the side of their father who was born in Guantanamo, Cuba of all places, but their mother is from Ecuador, and they refer to themselves jokingly as ‘Cubadorians’, but they are both born, raised, and educated in the USA, and the Cuban flavor is only one and not necessarily the most important influence on the sound of their music.
source: www.allaboutjazz.com
If there was an obvious Latin component in the sound of the Friday night concert it came from percussionist Gilad Dobretzky, whose variations and improvisations alone or in dialog with drummer Shai Zelman were all full of color and joy. Otherwise about half of the program included original compositions of the two brothers, very much under the shade and influence of great American song writers and musicians like Thelonious Monk or Dizzy Gillespie, to whom the other songs in the programs belonged. Just one song was a popular melody of Cuban origin. Overall it was not a bad evening, Mike Rodriguez is a good trumpet player, his brother Robert is an even better piano player, and we enjoyed a good jazz performance, maybe lacking sparks and passion, but this was certainly not one of the weakest in an uneven season at ‘Hot Jazz’. By the way the program of the next season seems very diverse and promising, and I have already renewed our subscription taking the maximal option of eight concerts.
The Boris Eifman Ballet troupe from St. Petersburg is a constant guest of the dance series at the Golda center in Tel Aviv (same hall that hosts the New Israeli Opera). He brought here during the last decade all his important works which made of him the best known Russian choreographer of the day. He is kind of a cult hero in Israel, the ballet audiences here especially the ones of Russian origin adore him, although in the Western media he is quite controversial, some criticizing him sharply for the commercial touch of many of his performances.
I have seen today the latest work of Eifman, which is inspired by Pushkin’s ‘Onegin’. I liked the performance, although I was neither shocked, nor charmed by everything that happened on the stage. There are two tings that I can complain about – one that the show lacked the inventiveness, the spark, the special ideas I found in other productions of Eifman. Second that too little of the Russian soul or Pushkin;s romanticism made it to the stage. Instead the story was adapted to happen in the period between 1991 and today, and talk about the Russian society of today. The music reflected quite well this discrepancy – the combination of Tchaikovsky and rocker Alexander Sitkovetsky’s music never worked together, and the effect is of rupture rather then of continuity. The dancers were all very good, you would not expect anything less from a first tier troup of Russian dancers, with Nina Zamaitzev especially shining as Tatiana. Stage sets were mostly focused around a circular screen that was used as dynamic background (interesting and efficient) enhanced by masterful light games. Eifman was present at the performance, and received standing ovations from the audience which may have been 80% Russian-speaking.
This was one of the craziest trip that I have taken. I flew out on Sunday night to New York for the two days IESG retreat meeting and flew back home on Wednesday night. What was common to the two flights besides being long transatlantic red-eyes was the fact that both landings were with almost zero visibility. New York welcomed me with a thick morning fog which made impossible the classical view of the Manhattan skyline, while in Tel Aviv a sandstorm reduced visibility to a few meters. The El Al pilots were probably less impressed than I was.
The Batsheva Dance Company founded in 1964, under the artistic direction of Ohad Naharin since 1990, established itself as one of the most interesting and well known modern ballet companies in the world. We saw last night their last production ‘Bill’ at the Suzanne Dellal center in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Neve Tzedek, which became in the last decade one of the preferred entertainment areas of the city and a good place to spend a Friday night out with a friend coming to visit home from her remote California location.
‘Bill’ is created by choreographer Sharon Eyal and takes the style of the company to its extremes. It is one hour of dance in a conception that focuses on the bodies and movements of the dancers, getting rid of many of the other elements that come together with the usual dance performance – narrative, sets, colors. What we see on the stage are only the dancers, in monochromatic costumes and with their bodies painted the same color and lights, and the continuum of the trance – style music guiding their movements. The result is that as a viewer you can focus on watching the dynamics of their movements, which build the whole performance. I liked what I saw on stage, it was permanently interesting, surprising, expressive – with the dancers interacting between themselves and the group in a sort of endless tribal ceremony from an universe that was created in front of our eyes. Even if the concept may seem too abstract and repetitive to some (it was not for me) the talent and effort of the dancers in the hot almost summer-like conditions (with the air conditioning not working for unknown reasons) was rewarded by well deserved applause from the audience.
An extensive interview with choreographer Sharon Eyal can be read at http://www.haaretz.com/magazine/friday-supplement/a-dance-on-the-wild-side-1.291018.
Last night’s performance at the New Israeli Opera was one of the first in the series of performances that brings here the Stanislavski Opera from Moscow. It was a fine performance in my opinion, although quite a different one than the usual kind of operas the Israeli audience is accustomed with.
source http://www.israel-opera.co.il/
This is one of the operas written by Prokofiev after his return to the Soviet Union in 1935, and the only one that does not have a Russian and patriotic theme. Actually the subject resembles more the operas that Propkofiev composed earlier abroad. The libretto written by the composer and his wife Mira Mendelson is based on an 18th century play by Sheridan that inspired several operas, kind of a comedy of errors and situations, with comedia dell’arte morals and frenzy, very much in the spirit of Goldoni and Beaumarchais. The music on the other hand belongs much more to the more mature and settled period of the late Prokofiev creation – it lacks the surprises and experiments of the earlier works, but has maturity and dramatic continuity, is full and interesting all over. If the subject is rather minor, the music is one of the best in the late operas of Prokofiev.
source http://www.israel-opera.co.il/
The performance brought to Tel Aviv (directed by Alexander Ttiel and Ludmila Naletova) takes the action almost completely out of the historical context. If there is one such context, it is rather the one of the era and place where the composer lived and created. The freedom was certainly limited for Prokofiev at that time when he found himself under the scrutiny of censorship, but the use of comedia dell’arte clowns for all the background characters gave him the opportunity to make in movement and mime what he could not express in words. I am not sure how much of the irony about the demagogic propaganda and pseudo-heroes of the communist regime made it to the Israeli public, but at least the scene movement was expressive, and the costumes expressive and colourful. The set designed by Valentin Arefiev with bars of huge ventilators moving around the scenic space gave a feeling of openness and the occasion for a few gags, but failed to connect to the music. The singers were good almost without exception, I had the feeling that if I knew Russian I could understand any word (so stop blaming the acoustics when the singers are un-intelligible!), they acted like a team in an opera that includes a lot of interaction, duets and multiple dialogs rather than spectacular areas, and the orchestra directed Wolf Gorelik sounded much better than usually.
I have found a couple of clips from two different performances of the opera – one is the overture directed by Valery Gergiev, and the second catches the fabulous Anna Netrebko in one of the duets in the first act of the opera.
You may have not heard about Eddie Jefferson. He was a idol in the 60s and 70s, an exquisite vocalist, but is almost forgotten nowadays. A moving in-between songs story told by Carla Cook during her concert in Tel Aviv brought him to my attention. A story about a teenager girl in Detroit, listening to a jazz radio station where Eddie, one of these musicians who could play the rich and solid classic jazz repertoire was a star, hearing that he comes in town and begging her parents to allow her to go and listen to him in a club, getting permission and getting little sleep for the night because of the emotion, waking up at morning with the news that Jefferson was killed that night and she will never listen to him live. That event happened exactly 31 years ago day by day. Now, Carla Cook tells this story at many concerts, and Jefferson lives in memory and gets to be known to people around the world because of her.
The direct style and the sincere interaction with the audience are the principal qualities of Carla Cook. Born in Detroit, she is a friend and sometimes works with violinist Regina Carter with whom she shared the dream to become a jazz musician since childhood. Nowadays beyond being a performer she also teaches jazz, and one of the funniest and nicest moments of the evening was the rendition of a standard in the style of her seven years old pupils (‘they really swing!’). Maybe she has not a great voice or the allure of a diva, but her sincerity, her joy in singing and sharing the emotions conquers the audience. The name of her last album (from 2002!) ‘Simply Natural’ describe quite well what she is about.
The program on Friday night (part of the Tel Aviv Museum Hot Jazz series) was mostly based on standards, and on lesser known songs of well known musicians that Carla loves to discover and bring back to the attention of the public. An old and little known Duke Ellington song was maybe the best of the evening. Out of the Israeli band pianist Nitai Herkowitz was the best, close to the singer, attentive and sensitive to her parts, with refined and interesting solos. Saxophonist Erez Bar-Noy had a few moments of quality, but his style closer to free jazz is not that fit with what Carla Cook does. Asaf Hachimi at bass was correct, and Shy Zalman, as many times could not refrain from being too loud and too extrovert, which sometimes is good, not always is needed.
