It's a Miserable Life
Avner Ben-Gal's Dark Side
Homeless
people, petty criminals, men with rifles slung over the shoulders – such
dubious figures populate Avner Ben-Gal’s works. But while they show a
dreary world full of dangers, his watercolor-like paintings have enormous
aesthetic appeal. The Museum
for Contemporary Art in Basel is acknowledging the disaster scenarios
of the artist, who resides in Tel Aviv, in a comprehensive solo show. Cheryl
Kaplan spoke with Ben-Gal, who is represented in the Deutsche Bank
Collection, in New York.
Avner
Ben-Gal, Tsunami, 2006
Courtesy
of the artist and Bortolami Gallery, New York
One
look at the titles of Avner
Ben Gal’s paintings and it’s easy to detect just how much the
painter loves trouble. Works like Tsunami, Sudden Poverty, and Fear
of Falling in the Street place his figures in catastrophes. In Tsunami,
two people are stuck in a house-like structure on their hands and knees,
watching the storm and realizing they’ll probably die. In Sudden
Poverty, two disembodied heads hover over a wind-blown landscape. Fear
of Falling in the Street finds a bearded man in a whale’s body looking
like a puppet with a bouncing head. The poor guy is beached in a pile of
urban rubble, begging with his last breath, hoping someone will throw him
a shekel or a dime. Ben Gal’s affection for these worrisome characters has
a slightly twisted, even contradictory feel. As the artist admits: "they
have a clandestine quality that wants to be exposed." His cast of rogues
hides out in a world defined by natural disaster and urban catastrophe.
Throughout Ben Gal’s paintings and drawings, there’s a strange dichotomy
between scenes that show man caught in the midst of nature’s wrath and
devastation beyond human control and those that describe a man-made hell
populated by people left with no choice but to live out their days in
misery.
Avner
Ben-Gal, Sudden Poverty, 2006
Courtesy
of the artist and Bortolami Gallery, New York
His
canvas Public Phone, painted entirely in blurred tones of grey,
depicts a loner dude that looks like an aging hippie. He’s hanging out in
a telephone booth as if it were his second home. Ben Gal admits: "
Public Phone is a bit bent and a bit ’80s — I mean who uses the phone
booth now? People who are shady..." Ben Gal likes painting people on the
fringe of society, who are not only struggling with personal flaws but
also with those thrown at them by the universe at large. As he admits:
"These are junkies and low-lifes, escaped prisoners and homeless people..
They’re not necessarily outlaws, but they’re close to it. They’re very
sinister and suspicious. We have a lot of characters in Israel who look
like they’re right out of a Charles
Dickens novel."
Avner
Ben-Gal, Public Phone, 2006
Courtesy
of the artist and Bortolami Gallery, New York
|
Avner Ben-Gal, Monkey in Bath, 2005,
Deutsche
Bank Collection
Courtesy of the
artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London
And much
like Dickens, who wrote about pickpockets and other petty criminals, Ben
Gal’s band of thugs delight in their wheel of misfortune. Their misery is
happily their fate.
While it would be easy to associate Ben Gal’s
work with the ongoing political struggle in the Middle East, the artist is
firm in his response to the role of politics in painting. "I’m not
interested in telling political fables through the paintings. I’m
interested in various states of humanity. These characters are trying to
survive, but they’re small-budget characters." By small budget, Ben Gal
means to say that these people are the dregs of society, the leftovers
populating the street that no one really takes notice of.
Avner
Ben-Gal, Gang, 2000
Courtesy of
the artist and Bortolami Gallery, New York
Ben
Gal’s drawings and watercolors also lead us into a world full of dark
abysses. "In the drawings, I use magic markers and scratchy lines." This
quick, comic-like, irreverent style can be seen throughout the Salt Mine
series of drawings. The tenor of these works is particularly perverse in
its play for sexuality and delight in punishment.
Gang finds
five men standing around in blood; their outfits have been scuffed up in
some violent mishap. In their super-tough poses, the bearded, longhaired
men in bellbottoms and turtleneck sweaters look as though they just walked
out of a ’70s B-movie. Cool and distant, they’ve gathered together as
though for a family photograph. The emotional disconnection reverberates
in Gang and is unsettling because of its disregard for the
brutality described in the scene.
Avner
Ben-Gal, Saltwater, 2002
Courtesy
of the artist and Bortolami Gallery, New York
The
same holds true for Saltwater. This disturbing painting finds four
men in a state of sexual delight, gloating as they gang rape a single
woman. The bearded men are watching the woman as she is watching herself
being abused. One man is pouring champagne over her breasts as he holds
onto his own erection. The combination of passivity, aggression, and a
classic, pastoral setting is practically combustible.
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