Midsummer Animals exhibition
Muza, Eretz Israel Museum Tel Aviv
Is there anything more serious than games and play?
Midsummer Animals is an exhibition of monumental wood and metal sculptures measuring 2-10 meters. The sculptures are in the shape of familiar and imaginary animals that invite you to touch them and have fun with them.
The sculptures incorporate an equal part blend of simplicity and sophistication.
Using simple lines I created figures from the animal world characterized as play sculptures made of metal and wood.
The exhibition is like a step back into time and is based on ideas conceived in the 1980s while the artist worked with traditional craftsmen in the Gaza Strip.
The sculptures in the exhibition offer themselves to the public without pretension or ingratiating themselves. The invite contact and play, and believe in the audience’s ability to experience complex feelings the message of which stems from the style, the approach to material, in the technique and structurality.
The play sculptures in the exhibition blur the gap between the concept and the thing itself. They are both the thing and the essence. In order to understand them you need to use them, play with them and experience them. They convey the artistic action as a philosophical act – the act itself rather than the discourse about it.
אהרל'ה בן אריה
Aarale Ben Arieh , Artist
Aarale Ben Arieh
אהרל'ה בן אריה
woods ideas
Height: 86cm
"Toy sculptures"
"It was back in the days when I was apprentice to Abu Ibrahim, an old deaf man from on the Gaza coast who built boats and ploughs.
We were sitting on the floor of his workshop in the market sipping sweet tea. The floor was strewn with citrus wood chips produced by our hatchets. The smell of fresh wood mingled with the scent of citrus and permeated the room.
The master gave me an unusual job to do – to make a wooden toy for his grandson. I was both surprised and thrilled by the request and at the end of the day I presented him with a rocking bird.
On the morrow Abu Ibrahim did not look a happy man and told me he had not had a moment’s peace since we parted the day before. It seems his 12 grandchildren who lived with him had raised a commotion over the toy. They all wanted one. I happily suggested that I make one for each of his grandchildren, and he was delighted. Buoyed by his reaction I set to my task and, by the evening, had finished 12 small pieces. Abu Ibrahim took the bag of toys home. The following morning he told me the toys had been a great success and that peace and quiet had been restored to his home.
"פסלי צעצוע"
",,, בשנות השמונים שימשתי כשוליה לאבו אברהים, חרש העץ הפלשתינאי מרצועת עזה.
נמשכתי אל אומנותו המסורתית שחיברה בפשטות בין שימושיות לצורה.
סדנתו אפופת ניחוח עציי הדר הייתה כוך קטנטן לשולי רחוב השוק הסואן.
מפינתי הקבועה והצפופה נהגתי להריח ולהתבונן בתנועות ידיו.
בידידות נינוחה נעשיתי חלק מנוף המקום.
רוב הזמן שתקנו בערבית.
באחד מהימים ביקש ממני המסטר להכין צעצוע לנכדו.
לפני לכתי מסרתי לידיו ציפור עץ מתנדנדת.
למחרת קיבל אותי בפנים קודרות.
סיפר לי כי מאז אתמול לא זכה לרגע של מנוחה.
נכדיו, שניים עשר במספר,נאבקו על הצעצוע, הקימו מהומה.
הצעתי כי אצור צעצוע לכל אחד ואחד מהם.
בערבו של יום מסרתי לידיו מבחר צעצועי עץ צבעוניים, צעצוע לכל נכד.
בפגישתנו הבאה, כשהתעניינתי, סימן לי כי השקט חזר.
מאז רבו ופרחו הצעצועים, לבשו צורות וחומרים מגוונים.
עם הזמן הם גדלו ונהיו לגנים פיסוליים ברחבי הארץ והעולם ....."
