ERAN SHAKINE-Contemporary Art

Eran Shakine

t the northern edge of Tel Aviv, a huge downward climb separates the street level from the beach. To get to the warm sand, you descend a steep staircase, discovering from its high vantage point a thick, concrete wall dividing the beach into separate realities. Behind the wall lies the Orthodox beach, where men and women bathe separately, on alternating days.

Eran Shakine’s new series, “The Rabbi Goes Swimming”, appears to the secular viewer as a vision of some lost collective memory. The ultraorthodox public, familiar and yet mysterious, is shown in an everyday moment, posed between holiness and impurity —concepts that have long since passed from the secular viewer’s world.

Shakine portrays the sea as a flat pictorial space, against which he examines his subjects. He does not claim to explain their customs, only his own interest in them. He describes the orthodox man entering the water surreally, floating above it or perhaps sinking below, revealing no illusory depth and no space between spirit and matter, aside from the heavy black brushstrokes describing the material sagging of the heavy black cloth in the purifying water. The black strokes have a calligraphic quality, symbolizing and tracing the figures diving among the waves.

Shakine’s second location is a room, seen from above, in which characters sit in different arrangements around a table. The bird’s-eye view could signify surveillance of trapped inmates, or the protective gaze of a higher power, Big Brother of the faithful, who watches for shadowy moments of sin in continuous scrutiny.

In another series, Shakine shows a girl lying in bed, surrounded by Hasidim holding hands. A blanket of tears covers her small figure, invoking the forms of traditional Jewish 19th century paper cutouts. The fabric’s pattern and tasseled edges lend the scene a folkloric-oriental mood, and separate the masculine world of tradition from the feminine, girlish figure. A figure’s profile stands watching in the bottom right corner; an outsider inserted into the scene to give the viewer emotional reference. As many Renaissance painters did before him, Shakine uses his own figure as model and becomes a witness to the painting’s events.

Shakine’s dialog with the ultra-orthodox world has been an ongoing theme in his painting, and has been expressed in previous series (such as “Sabbath Match”, 2008). It expresses a persisting curiosity in this parallel world, and speaks to issues of Jewish identity and of tradition’s place in our ever-changing society.

The rabbi goes swimming, 2012, Acrylic on canvas 98x430 cm

The rabbi goes swimming, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 100x90 cm

the rabbi goes swimming, 2012 Acrylic on canvas, 148x138 cm

The rabbi goes swimming, 2012, Acrylic on canvas 120x95 cm

The rabbi goes swimming, 2012, Acrylic on canvas 98x430 cm

The rabbi goes swimming, 2012, Acrylic on canvas 98x430 cm

The rabbi goes swimming, 2012, Acrylic on canvas 140x100 cm

Womens’ Day , 2012, Acrylic on canvas 143x140 cm

Mans’ Day, 2012, Acrylic on canvas 145x137 cm

The rabbi goes swimming, 2012, Acrylic on canvas 140x110 cm

The rabbi goes swimming, 2012, Acrylic on canvas 140x110 cm

Untitled, 2012, Acrylic on canvas 140x110 cm

The conference, 2012, Acrylic on canvas 90x80 cm

Untitled (batman), 2012 Acrylic on canvas 90x144 cm

Untitled (Purim 2), 2013 Acrylic on canvas, 90x144

Untitled (Purim 1), 2013 Acrylic on canvas, 90x144 cm

You have my blessing, 2012 Acrylic on canvas, 140x144 cm

Untitled (room1), 2012 Acrylic on canvas, 143x137 cm

Untitled (room3), 2012 Acrylic on canvas, 130x110 cm

Untitled (room2), 2012 Acrylic on canvas, 140x120 cm

Untitled (3rd floor), 2013 Acrylic on canvas, 100x90 cm

Untitled, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 110x100cm

Untitled (bed), 2012 Acrylic on canvas, 110x80 cm

Untitled (bed 1), 2012 Acrylic on canvas, 110x80 cm

Untitled (bed 3), 2013 Acrylic on canvas, 110x100cm

Untitled (sisters), 2012, Acrylic on canvas 130x110 cm

Born in Tel Aviv, 1962 Studied art at Wizo Art School, Tel Aviv 1987-1992 Lived in New York, assistant to artist Karl Appel

Selected Solo Exhibitions 2012 Sunny Side Up, Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 2011 Good help is hard to find..., Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 2010 Catwalk, Gallery 39, Tel Aviv

Minimal contradictions, TWIG Gallery, Brussels, Belgium 2009 Don’t worry, Julie M. Gallery, Toronto 2008 Sabbath Match, Gallery 39, Tel Aviv 2007 The Artist Who did not Look Back, Gallery 39, Tel Aviv 2003 Domestic, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art 2000-02 Julie M. Gallery, Tel Aviv 1997 New Sculptures, Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan 1995 Pools, Artists House, Jerusalem 1990 Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel 1989 Selected 43, The Drawing Center, New York 1987 Givon Fine Arts Gallery, Tel Aviv

Selected Group Exhibitions 2013 2012

2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2005 2000 1999 1994

1984

Art Stage Singapore, with Zemack Gallery Puls Art Fair NYC, Shanghai Contemporary, Art Platform Los Angeles, Art Toronto, Art Miami, with Zemack Gallery “We have a champion!” Eretz Israel Museum, Tel aviv Pulse Art Fair, LA and Miami, with Zemack Gallery Art Brussels, with TWIG Gallery Timebuoy, The Tel Aviv Biennial, Art TLV Van Gogh in Tel Aviv, Rubin Museum, Tel Aviv On the Banks of the Yarkon, Tel Aviv Museum of Art The Vera, Silvia and Arturo Schwarz Collection, Tel Aviv Museum of Art Drawing: New Acquisitions, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem Contemporary Art Meeting, Tel Hai 94, Israel Israeli Sculpture 1948-1998, The Open Museum, Tefen Noemi Givon Gallery, Tel Aviv

Public Sculptures and Permanent Installations Museum Tower Plaza, Tel Aviv / Rothschild Boulevard, Tel Aviv / Tel Aviv Artists House / Ashdod Park / Gan HaTzuk, Netanya / The College of Management, Rishon LeZion / Gan Kineret, Kfar Saba

Grants and Scholarships 1995 Artist in residence, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris 1989-90 Arts Matters, New York

Public Collections The British Museum, London / Ludwig Museum, Aachen, Germany / The Israel Museum, Jerusalem / Tel Aviv Museum of Art / Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art / The Open Air Museum, Tefen / Ein Harod Museum

Selected Bibliography Barbara A. MacAdam, ARTnews, Nuit Banai, Artforum International Magazine Aviva Lori, Haaretz Magazine

Books “Sunny Side Up” Hirmer 2011