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Monumental Woodcuts and Related Works September 10 - October 31, 2003 Curator: Nathan Harpaz
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Monumental Woodcuts and Related Works September 10 - October 31, 2003 Curator: Nathan Harpaz
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| Ben Menahem’s images are
charged with darkness, fear, and death, in a sense of pessimism or even
nihilism. These images are rooted in the artist’s life experiences, including
the dark cloud cast by the Holocaust, an injury sustained during his military
service, and turmoil in his native Israel. As the artist stated in the
catalog for his 1988 exhibition at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, “In
my woodcuts I depict what I’m trying to escape from.”
The most unique quality of Ben Menahem’s work derives from his intensification of the already powerful medium of the black and white woodcut. The artist’s woodcuts from the late 1970s and early 1980s are inspired by German expressionism in their composition and scale; since the late 1980s Ben Menahem’s works have grown in size, but have been trimmed in detail. In these monumental woodcuts the artist uses close-up views, unusual perspectives, neutral backgrounds, and a more primitive approach. While the German expressionists conceptually turned small format graphics into monumental images, Ben Menahem achieves even greater emotional experience and empathy by enlarging the woodcut format. (From the exhibition's catalog) |
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