The paintings, sculpture, artist’s books and documentation of project and journeys featured in Pinchas Cohen Gan’s retrospective, newly opened at Tel Aviv Museum, represent only a small portion of his work and an intense career that began in New York in the 1970s and continues strongly to this day. Not that the gallery space is so limited, but because his output coupled with the intellectual effort he puts into his work is unmatched among Israeli artists.
Yet anyone unfamiliar with Cohen Gan’s work may well have a rough passage navigating an exhibition in which minimalistic structures are integrated with philosophical ideas, language, and maths, and art formulated as a science. Consequently, if one wants to keep afloat, it might be best to locate and hang on to Cohen’s signature image, a schematic figure of Everyman – and pursue its manifestations throughout this complex show.
Early on, this tiny figure surfaces, set against an empty monochromatic field, or, as in one case, stands on a tilted circle within a landscape comprising only a tree and a geometric structure. Anxiety as well as vulnerability is expressed through ink paintings from1982 inspired by the War in Lebanon; while ten years later, Everyman has become a victim. In black drawings produced for an International Art Biennale in Istanbul where the artist chose to memorialize Jewish communities that perished during the Holocaust, he drags a huge black star, or else his body is reduced to a head on a stick. In recent years, this figure has become part of bold, three dimensional wall works in painted wood, many of them carrying carry socio-political messages that are not always crystal clear. As, for example, in a piece entitled Art and Language (1997) where Everyman, encircled by strips of wood, is either engaged in a balancing act, or attempting to punch his way out.
This exhibition, curated by Galia Bar Or, is accompanied by an illustrated catalog and by a book documenting all Cohen Gan’s activities, objects, and concepts.
Main building, Tel Aviv Museum, 27 Shaul Hamelech Bvd, Tel Aviv
