Death's Dominion

“Archive,” 2003 (above), and ART Galia Yahav a video still from “Exposure” (1975). here is a lesson in the Gideon the 1985 exhibition devoted to beds, Gechtman exhibition at the which dealt in part with the disparity T Israel Museum in Jerusalem: Death’s dominion between the object itself and its photo- This is how to mount a superb retro- graphed representation. Finally, there spective. Aya Miron, curator of the is the “Yotam” installation, whose sub- show, which runs until April 5, dis- Five years after Gideon Gechtman’s passing, the ject is the artist’s late son. These are plays great intelligence in managing Israel Museum is holding a superb retrospective of always single beds. Mostly they are Gechtman’s life project. Writing on hospital beds, consisting of mattresses, the museum’s English-language web- his work, a life project whose theme is death bars and charts, with medical instru- site, she observes that his work actu- ments close at hand. alizes “the possibility that artworks, Similarly, the breach between whose survival potential is ‘greater preparation for death, an orientation know his work will benefit from a re- “warm” human and nostalgic materi- than life,’ would be a means of perpet- toward death and its description and consideration made possible by the jux- als, such as black-and-white home pho- uation – a kind of mausoleum designed documentation, indeed the creation of taposing of his art from the mid-1970s tos, and “cold” and industrial materials, to preserve the body of his works af- a mausoleum for the concept of death until his death in 2008, aged 66. such as stainless steel valves, medical ter his death.” Miron has mounted itself. “Gideon Gechtman will not die The exhibition makes it possible to instruments and marble surfaces, is a comprehensive exhibition that in- again,” Miron writes in the exhibition discern development, change of tone bridged by serial sculptural sequences. cludes central works from all periods catalogue, thereby also setting the ap- and an emotional range. There is a Thus, a 1972 work consists of a display of the artist’s life. At the same time, propriate secular tone. marked transition from action and body box containing four pieces of rope at she maintains precise proportions be- Visitors unfamiliar with the entire art and from texts (documentation of different stages of fraying. “Archive” tween key works and those that are Gechtman oeuvre will be able to ac- the shaving of his body hair for medical (2003), a large wall installation con- more secondary in character. The quaint themselves with it deeply and in- treatment in the “Exposure” exhibition, sisting of vertical burial niches, is a space, too, is handled dramatically, tensively, for Miron has actually recon- the creation of brushes from his and his free reproduction of the cemetery in without surrendering to a cult of death structed three of his exhibitions in their family’s hair, the fake death notices of Portbou, Spain, where the philosopher beyond the boundaries set by the artist entirety: “Exposure” (1975), “Hebrew the 1970s and 1980s), in which Gecht- Walter Benjamin committed suicide in himself. Work” (1975) and “Yotam” (2000). Many man is present himself or in name, to 1940. Each niche contains a vase, a flo- If the exhibition contains sentiment other projects are also represented in synthetic theatrical installations that ral arrangement, a pitcher, or a bowl of or kitsch, a ritualizing or fetishization part. Beyond the powerful experience deal with the accessories of illness fruits and stones, with the same equal- of bereavement and mourning, these that floods viewers in the presence of and bereavement. These include death izing system of classification between are all themes that were saliently ex- death’s representation – which in Gech- carts canopied with colored marble or original and substitute that one finds in plored by the artist. As linchpins of his tman’s case is tautological and by the simulated marble, burial urns, still lifes works from the start of an artistic path. art, they are on display without a trace same token, retrospectively indiffer- in the vanitas style, stone pillars and After the “Exposure” exhibition, of curatorial imperiousness or popu- ent and theatrical – those who already other ritual elements of commemora- Gechtman, who was then 33, had death lism. Imbuing an exhibition with the tion bearing an indirect or “everyman” notices printed up in which his fam- right dose of emotion is never simple presence. ily supposedly announced his death. for curators, and in this case is particu- The extensive display also allows These were posted around his home in larly complex. It is almost impossible for the discovery of close connections Rishon Letzion and published in daily to curate a posthumous retrospective between Gechtman’s earlier and later newspapers. Miron, the curator, notes, that will constitute a fair requiem for work. One dominant feature of his art “This was a kind of general rehearsal an artist who was constantly – obses- that becomes apparent in this way is the for his anticipated death, or perhaps an sively, some would say – preoccupied presence of beds. There is the anony- act of projection as a means of manag- with death: his own future death and mous Arab worker’s mattress strewn ing anxiety. As with many of his works, the death of his elder son at the age of on the floor, photographed in blurred this action appeared in many artistic 26. Miron also wisely avoids excessive fashion alongside the real mattress on embodiments, as part of his trenchant narration of Gechtman’s biography and which Gechtman slept for a week in and sometimes chilling research into artistic development. the museum itself while creating the the connections between life, death and Gechtman’s artistic lifework was a “Hebrew Work” installation. There is the definitions of a work of art.” 6 Haaretz Guide | March 7, 2014.

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