Introduction
1970-72
- Kadishman begins drawing on pages of the Manhattan telephone directory in his New York hotel room
- Kadishman continues to draw on telephone pages in the cities through which he passes while traveling in the United States.
1972
- Enlarged telephone pages are exhibited as part of Kadishman's exhibition at the Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany.
1972-74
- Kadishman draws on pages from Israeli telephone directories. He uses various materials and methods and also creates three dimensional works from telephone pages. The subject is summarized in a series of monochrome works.
1975
- In honor of the tenth anniversary of the Israel Museum, Kadishman prepares a print based on a crossed—out telephone page and a photograph of the Israel Museum.
The edition is presented as a gift to the Museum.
- During the process of printing, proofs of various colors are pulled. Kadishman now works on these experimental proofs, approaching them in a manner similar to that in which he had approached the original telephone pages.
- Kadishman gives some of the colored proofs to artist-friends who happen by his studio and asks them to work on them. Among the first artists to work on these proofs are: Mirit Cohen, Arie Azene, Dan Partouche, Michael Eiseman, and Michael Wolman.
1976
- As the pages begin to pile up in his studio, Kadishman conceives of the idea of a large scale project in which a great many artists will work on his proofs. He fixes unofficial rules. Each artist will receive two pages to work on. The finished products will be signed jointly by Kadishman and the collaborating artist; each will keep one page.
- Israel Museum staff members see a group of these works in Kadishman's studio and begin considering the idea of exhibiting the project.
- Kadishman continues to distribute proofs, but now tells artists that the works will be exhibited at the Museum. This new fact is taken into consideration by the participating artists.
- Preparatory work on the exhibition begins. Artists are interviewed and asked a variety of questions relating to their work and what they did with the Kadishman proof, Emphasis is placed on questions concerning the cooperative effort between artists.
1977
Kadishman continues to distribute proofs in Israel and abroad while work on the exhibition continues.
1978
In October, the deadline for works to be included in the exhibition, Kadishman transfers over 100 pages to the Israel Museum.
1979
The exhibition opens at the Israel Museum on February 13.
- Kadishman continues to distribute proofs.
This exhibition displays the works which more than one hundred artists executed on proofs of a Menashe Kadishman print based on a telephone page. Since this print was very much a part of a long series of works which Kadishman did on telephone pages, this catalogue begins with the history of the evolution of their use within Kadishman's work. Then comes an analysis of the ways in which the artists approached the proof, followed by a representative sample of the collaborators' solutions for integrating their own work into Kadishman's print. The last section examines aspects of the history of joint efforts among modern artists, and presents the opinions of those who participated in the Kadishman experiment on the subject of cooperative endeavors.
Kadishman's Telephone Pages
Kadishman began to work on telephone pages while in New York in 1970. Speaking of them he recalled, "That's when it began more seriously, as an obsession, although I
had already worked on them before, here and there. It began when I came to New York. I couldn't sleep because of the time change, and I looked at Manhattan at night. It was already four in the morning. l couldn't sleep and I wanted to draw. I looked for paper but didn't find any. I began to scribble on the telephone book. I scribbled a bit
on the page and then afterwards I began working on the page itself. I related to each column as if it were a building, a skyscraper. Later l related to the page itself, not what I saw around it, rather to what there was on the page. I arrived at a whole landscape, paths between the letters, a cardiogram of the page. What interested me in
the pages was the anonymity of the people. I would see Smith, Smith, Smith and each of them was a human being, a personality... I crossed them out in the beginning,
because I didn't care about all those Smiths .... "(1)
At this stage the pages were raw material. Kadishman focused on the visual structure of each page as the typesetter had arranged it.
He erased names with horizontal lines, encircled spaces between names, or related to the irregular right—hand margins formed by the columns of names as if to a landscape of mountains or to an electrocardiogram.
(All quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from interviews with the artists.)
Later, the telephone page works became a kind of personal diary. Kadishman made himself a telephone page from each of the places he passed through in his travels in
the United States and throughout the world. Sometimes he even used pages from the places that people he met and befriended came from, even if he hadn't been there himself. On such pages, all of the names are crossed out except the name of the place and that of the person he knew in or from that place. He collected these pages in a notebook and made himself books of telephone pages.
When he worked on Israeli telephone pages he did not cross out names. He drew arches above them, thereby putting them in what resembled cages. The names were suddenly less anonymous. Only later did he succeed in bringing himself to cross out names on these pages as well, but he did this with transparent colors so that it was still possible to clearly make out the listings underneath.
In 1972 Kadishman exhibited enlarged telephone pages at the Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld. Later, while hospitalized for an appendix operation, he executed a large series of telephone pages, this time not as a diary, but rather as variations on a theme. In addition to crossing out names with traditional media such as pen, crayon, and pastel chalk, he also obliterated names with staples, glue applied from a syringe, self-adhesive labels, and so on. The telephone page series came to an end around 1974 with a group of monochromatic works. The whole page was completely covered with a single opaque color; the listings can hardly be seen through the paint.
In addition, Kadishman made a number of three-dimensional works using telephone pages. These include the sculpture with pieces of telephone pages stuck into the cracks of a stone, just as notes are crammed into cracks in the Wailing Wall. He also dealt with this latter theme in a number of prints. Another three-dimensional example is the cylindrical model for a monument that he created by piling up circles cut out from telephone pages. or this model he said, "I used telephone pages. I liked the material because 1 felt a relationship with it. This was to be a monument, and I hate monuments. I thought, as an idea, to make a monument from pages, these kinds of
pages, with names.... "
Kadishman's use of telephone pages not only expresses artistic values, but also the character of the man himself. Kadishman loves to talk on the telephone. His many
notebooks and the walls of his kitchen are covered with names and telephone numbers. By means of the telephone, he keeps in contact with everyone. Arie Azene
spoke of this Kadishman connection in metaphorical terms: "He is like a spider that spins a web that gets to all kinds of places. He is a big fat spider, but the webs that he
spins are strong."
Approaches to Kadishman's Proof
The pages which each artist received from Menashe Kadishman were proofs, in various stages of the printing process, of a prim he had done for the Israel Museum. For this print (Fig. 1 and back cover) he took a telephone page on which he had crossed out names and added a photograph of the museum and a section from the
Jerusalem telephone book which included the telephone number of the museum. This collage was then enlarged and printed by a photo-offset process. Almost all of the
proofs had a long narrow blank section in the center where the photograph of the Israel Museum would appear in the final version of the print (Fig. 2). Although all of the proofs originated from the same matrix, the number of colors in which they had been printed varied. The challenge which confronted the participating artists was to
find a means of integrating their own work into that of the given page.
Before arriving at a solution, however, the artists first had to decide what part of the surface of the page was at their disposal. In this respect it is possible to discern four basic approaches to the page: 1) artists who worked only in the blank white section in the center; 2) those who used the black section and a small portion of the printed page; 3) artists who saw the whole page as their held of action; 4) those who perceived the page as a raw material to be recomposed in a way different from the original conception.
Michael Eiseman"s page (Fig. 3) exemplifies the approach of those artists who remained exclusively within the blank section. Eiseman explained, "I worked in the white area, an area that looked like a piece of paper before I worked on it. I did my work without taking into consideration the page itself within the place that can be called 'the space for rent".... In this given area I put a piece of my work from a certain period." Bar Kochba Doktori (Fig. 4) approached the page in a similar manner. He also kept his drawing scrupulously within the borders of the white section, which he regarded as his sole held of action.
Oded Feingersh's work (Fig. 5) is characteristic of those artists who used the blank section but extended their work beyond its borders to selected and limited areas. In the blank section there is a drawing of a masked Figure staring at a burning match; at the bottom of the page appears a drawing of a belt. The artist's explanation was, "I covered over the bottom of the page in order to connect it with the figure... so that it wouldn't be enclosed by Menashe Kadishman, so that he wouldn't conquer me completely." This approach also finds expression in Alima's rendition (Fig. 6). She worked mainly in the center of the page, but continued drawing on some of the crossed-out names.
"That was the only clean section on the page, and I usually work on white paper.... I wanted to integrate my work, so that it would not be an isolated segment within the page. So I hinted along the edges and helped him to continue to erase a little."
Ovadia Alkara's work (Fig. 7) shows the approach of those artists who saw the whole page as open territory. In his collage, he peeled off vertical strips from the surface of the Kadishman print and attached photographs. Alkara commented, "Visually speaking, it is impossible to see the page other than as a whole. To see it only as a white patch is incorrect." Another example is the page done by Liliane Klapisch (Fig.8). She drew over the whole page, while using forms within it as elements in her own composition.
Larry Abramson's work (Fig. 9) demonstrates how some artists related to the page as a material and used elements from it in a new work different in concept from the original print. Abramson turned the page over, made two vertical cuts with a knife, and folded down the rectangle that was created between them. The result was a white
page, at the top of which was a rectangle containing a section of the original page. "My solution hinted at and gave enough information about a different kind of action that was found on the other side of the page. My action is in a way rather dry in comparison to Menashe's which was personally involved and capricious.... The connection is a chain. He took something arbitrary, changed it into something of Kadishman, threw it at me as something arbitrary, and I changed it into Abramson." Micha Ullman's work (Fig. l0) is another such example. The whole page is covered with grey gouache. At the bottom of the page he pasted on a small section from the erased names. This rectangle is echoed in lines which he drew in the paint while it was still wet
Relating to the Print
Within the given proof, there were many elements that artists could choose to relate to: the character of Kadishman's scribbling, the horizontal lines which cross out the directory entries, the forms of the columns of names, the irregular lines tracing the margins of the row of names, the shape of the blank section, the color-tones of the page, the theme of erased names, telephone numbers, etc. Although the number of elements artists found to emphasize was numerous, two basic attitudes can be discerned: that of artists who focused on the formal elements of the proof, and that of those who related to its content or subject matter. The dividing line between these two approaches is not clear cut. Among those artists who emphasized the formal aspects, some also hinted at thematic elements — and vice versa. In most cases, however, one of the basic attitudes dominated.
The Formal Approach
Artists who took the formal approach related primarily to the lines, shapes or colors of Kadishman's proof. Arie Azene's page (Fig. 11) belongs to this category. Azene received the Kadishman proof during a period when he was dealing with linear subjects. It was thus natural for him to arrive at a solution by involving the lines on the proof. Beginning from the center of the blank section, he laid down rows of parallel horizontal lines of white acrylic paint which extended into part of the print and repeated the shape of the blank section. The paint lines add to an connect up with those on the proof to create an equilibrium between the form of the unprinted section
and the page as a whole, Although in his own work he used accumulations of lines to emphasize the rhythmic repetition of certain simple landscape elements, Azene saw
a clear parallel between this and what was happening on the telephone page print. "The involvement of man is what builds the structure in a landscape as it does on a
page."
Hanita Benjano (Fig. 12) sewed a network of black parallel horizontal threads over the print. Despite the emphasis on the empty white space, some of the threads, especially at the bottom, traverse the whole page. She thus bound the work to the horizontal lines of the original page while also creating a new linear composition.
The proof which the artists received is dominated by elongated, irregular, vertical rectangles. Both the columns of names and numbers and the blank area take this form.
Some artists, such as Shlomo Koren and Ovadia Alkara, related to this shape and repeated it in a variety of ways as their means of integrating their work into the given page.
Shlomo Koren (Fig. I3) superimposed shaded black columns over the entire surface of the print. He related to the calligraphy of the page as structure. His drawing also
adds an element of movement to the page. "My first reaction was to a static page that deals with a text that seemed abstract to me. What I did was to give the printed word, the text, somewhat more movement." In the blank area, three prominent columns are cut by horizontal scribble—like lines which can be seen as continuations of either the names or the erasures. Koren said that he reacted to the anonymous names on the page by writing what could be a letter to an anonymous Mr. X.
Alkara (Fig. 7) added a series of vertical elements to the page. First he glued a color photograph onto the upper right corner. Then he wet the paper and peeled narrow,
parallel, vertical columns from the upper layer of the paper. He felt that the tearing process was similar to that which Kadishman had used when he crossed out the names. To the torn and printed columns which emerged he then taped cut-out black-and-white photographs of skyscrapers whose forms were roughly the same as those of
the columns on the page. The nameless passersby in the color photograph and the endless floors of the skyscrapers are for him thematically connected with the anonymous names on the telephone page. So, too, is the title at the top, "Visit Greenwich Village", which he cut out from a subway poster. It reminded him of a place that people throng to see but which is actually barren. Alkara did a series of drawings which were superimposed on blueprint plans of the World Trade Center. He felt a strong connection between what he did on the telephone page and his own work which made use of the structure of the plan as a starting point for his composition.
The artists who chose to use the color-tones of the telephone page as a connecting link; all tended towards abstraction and emphasized color in their own work. An
instance of this kind of approach is found in the composition by Lea Nikel (Fig. 14). She pasted a watercolor of her own onto the telephone page. The watercolor covered the whole upper left side and the blank area completely. The telephone page in this case is a blue proof, and Lee Nikel`s watercolor is dominated by the same blue tones. At its center there is a circular movement in blue strokes which contrasts to the verticality of the page. However, a yellow frame around the edges of the watercolor emphasizes the rectangular aspect of her paper and echoes the elongated rectangle of the telephone page. Within the context of the telephone page, several of the blue brush strokes towards the bottom and the free vertical strokes on the right become echoes of the erasures on the print.
A number of watercolors were scattered at random on Lea Nikel`s studio Floor when Kadishman arrived with the telephone page. "When I saw his page I immediately thought of my watercolors. The color of my drawing continues the letters and colors and the whole spirit of the print. It was as if it were born for it; as if l had seen beforehand that Menashe would come and l would have to add this." She and Kadishman pasted the watercolor onto the print together. Although she had always made collages, she did not see the pasting of her watercolor onto the page as a collage, but rather as a continuation of what Menashe had started.
For Avigdor Stematsky (Fig. 15) this was the first time that he had ever worked on anything other than a clean surface. The page he received was yellow and green-black. To this he added his own yellow, blue, and black patches in the blank area and on the print. He based his connection on the introduction of additional, similar or
contrasting color areas in a way which viably combined with the existing composition and colors.
The Iconographic Approach
This approach applies to those artists whose connection to Kadishman's work is by means of the subject or content of the page. This may be a straightforward reference to the telephone and telephone numbers or, on a more complex level, an interpretation of the erased names, the anonymous man, and the theme of communication. Portraits of Kadishman or quotes from his other works of art are occasionally included.
Among those artists who related to the telephone itself or its accoutrements are Avner Katz and Michel Wolman. Katz (Fig. 16) drew an anthropomorphic telephone receiver sticking out its tongue. Wolman (Fig. 17) cast telephone tokens in white latex which was in the shape of the blank area. The proof he used contained the
photograph of the museum, and Wolman hung the white rubber on top of it so it could be lifted up from the bottom. Wolman explained that the tokens were for calling all the people whose numbers appeared on the page, In his own work at this time, he had been executing envelopes and mailboxes in various materials. He was interested not only in their possibilities of visual expression, but also in the idea of communication. "The envelopes pass on the thoughts of people, a telephone does the same thing. You talk; you exchange thoughts when you call."
Michael Druks' work (Fig. 18) also deals with the subject of communication but in a different way. On this page there are sets of colored dots. In each set one dot was pasted on the photograph of the museum and the other on one of the erased names. A line which connects them links the museum with the anonymous names in the telephone directory.
Some artists related to the erased or crossed-out names. They made reference either to the symbolic killing implicit in this action, a tradition which already existed in Ancient Egypt, or to the theme of the anonymous man. Ami Shavit's work (Fig. 19) focuses on the figure of G.I. Joe, the anonymous American soldier, whom he associated with the numbers in a telephone book. The figure is shown twice, once as a full figure and once as a white shadow. Such figures first appeared in a series of prints which Shavit did after the 1973 war, based on a wooden doll of G.I. Joe he had bought.
Batia Apollo (Fig. 20) pasted on a photograph of a skyscraper with endless windows which suggest countless inhabitants. Thus she created a picture characteristic of a modern metropolis. On the right side of the building, tiny people are jumping from the windows to commit suicide.
Shmuel Bak (Fig. 21) also hinted at the theme of death. He drew a crossed-out pear on a tombstone. Bak explained, "What happens on this page is sad. The elimination of
identity. On the page with the erased names I saw a kind of gravestone - the murder of a quantity of people. I knew a gravestone would be the correct thing. Also, the white form invited this idea. I took an element that is already identified with my work, the metaphorical element of the man-fruit, and I again created a tombstone".
Gerard Marx's work (Fig, 22) also investigated the subject of death. It is connected to the project ' Jerusalem Shots' that he did in 1976. For that project, he took photographs of Jerusalem street scenes to Kibbutz Merom HaGolan where he shot at them with a rifle. Of the work he did on the proof he commented, "Kadishman asked me to complete his page, I noticed that the page was from Manhattan telephone book and on this was pasted a piece of a Jerusalem telephone book. As with my 'Jerusalem
Shots', I took the Kadishman print to a firing range near Bethlehem, I shot at it with an M-1 rifle, and I splattered it with earth."
Other works touch on Kadishman himself the man and his work. Uri Lifshitz (Fig. 23) and Arie Lubin (Fig. 24) drew portraits of Kadishman on the proof. Yehezkel Streichman (Fig.25) painted trees, and on the right side cut out a tree similar to Kadishmans cut—out trees which appeared, for example, in "The Forest of Laundry"
exhibited at the Israel Museum, summer 1975. Streichman said of his work, "I cut the page and made a tree for him, the way he translates trees, and I added the way I translate trees ..., I did a great many watercolors like this with trees, made with the finger, with dots like that. So here are both my solution to trees and the solution that I saw Kadishman do many times."
Micha Laury (Fig. 26) did not relate to subjects connected with the telephone or Kadishman, but rather to the Israel Museum as it appears in the photograph on the print. He covered over the photograph of the museum in grey gouache and pasted on small pieces of wood which repeated the location of the museum buildings.
Joshua Neustein (Fig. 27) also used the museum building, although his approach was quite different. He covered Kadishman's page with an additional sheet of white paper
and cut a window through which the white area in the center of the original page and a little of the colored page bordering it can be seen. Above the window there is an exact pencil drawing of the museum buildings. Neustein explained that his work relates to the printing process. The page he received from Kadishman was at a certain stage in the printing process. Neustein seemingly continued the process, using the principle that an area already printed must be covered over while the area slated for printing remains exposed. The sketch of the museum was intended to show the printer what will go into the exposed area.
Aviva Margalit is the only artist who related to the experiment itself (Fig. 28). In addition to drawing on the page, she appended her suggestions for further possibilities in a kind of notebook containing small scale xeroxes of Kadishman's page. She left the last pages untouched, and invited the spectators to make their own suggestions. Thus she repeated Kadishman`s action of distributing proofs to others. A few artists did not attempt to relate to the proof in any of the ways described above, but rather executed on it totally independent works that would have looked the same had a clean sheet of white paper been used.
Long Distance
Kadishman also asked a number of artists from abroad to do something on his proof. Among those who participated were Arman, Christo, Les Levine, and George Segal. Arman (Fig. 29) printed piled-up hand guns on the page. Christo (Fig. 30) wrapped the proof by rolling it printed side out, covering it with clear plastic, and tying
the package with twine. Les Levine (Fig. 31) pasted a color photograph of himself on the blank section. George Segal (Fig. 32) did a "stomach print". He inked Kadishman's very ample stomach and then pressed it against the center of the page.
On Cooperative Effort
The history of modern art contains many instances of artists working together either on specific problems or on each other's works. The Picasso—Braque experiment
around 1910, which spawned the revolutionary discoveries of Cubism, is probably one of the best known examples. So closely did the two artists collaborate that it is often impossible to discern who first conceived a given idea. For a time neither signed his work, and Braque admitted, "There was a moment when we had difficulty in recognizing our own paintings."(2)
Another famous joint effort was a game the Surrealists
named, the "Exquisite Corpse". This consisted of passing a piece of paper around among several people, each of whom added a phrase or part of a drawing, and then
folded the paper so that none of the other participants had any idea of the nature of the preceding contributions. Man Ray, Tanguy, and Miro were among the artists who took part. The object was to release the mind's metaphorical potentialities through the resulting, surprising juxtapositions. But Breton noted that what additionally excited them in these composite productions was "the conviction that at the very least, they were stamped with a uniquely collective authority ...."(3)
The strong desire for a collective effort arose again in the late fifties and continued throughout the sixties. In part this was due to a general reaction by artists against the
super-individualistic aspects of Abstract Expressionism. For many artists, the collective idea was also congruent with their socio-political beliefs. Most of the groups that stressed cooperative efforts were also interested in optical and other scientifically-oriented phenomena, and tried to emulate the corporate endeavor of scientists in their common projects.
In the late sixties, Israel also had its share of artists who experimented in working together in large or small groups. One of these attempts was an exhibition entitled
"Labyrinth", held at the Israel Museum in the winter of 1967. Exhibition Curator Yona Fischer defined it as "An attempt to bring seven artists together, to think and create collectively."" Many other examples of this kind of activity existed at the time. The "1O +" group held several exhibitions, each one around a single set theme.
"Mashkof", a group of Jerusalem artists, poets, and composers active at the close of the last decade, held an exhibition at the Engel Gallery in which these three disciplines interacted. Each artist worked with a poet; the poet wrote his poem on a lithographic stone, and the artist illustrated it. The works were shown to the accompaniment of music composed by Yosi Mar Haim to fit the poetry.
One of the most recent cooperative efforts, carried out on an international scale, was Herbert Distel's "Museum of Drawers" (shown at the Israel Museum, winter 1978). Distel took a chest of drawers he found and converted it into a mini—museum of twentieth century art. For several years he collected miniature works by speaking or
corresponding with artists. Eventually over 500 artists sent him works to exhibit in the 'rooms' of his museum,
Though a great many more experiments could be mentioned, that proposed by Menashe Kadishman is unique and differs from all those which preceded it. For
the first time, all the participating artists were faced with a single work by a living artist with whom they were personally acquainted. Since these artists were not members of a group, and their ideas and methods of presentation differed widely, each had to find a way of integrating his own style and temperament into the Kadishman print. Many of the participating artists were later interviewed by the organizers of the exhibition and asked their opinion of cooperative efforts between artists in general and of this experiment in particular.
Some artists contended that cooperative work is untenable:
"Art is the most egotistical field that exists. There is no orchestra; everyone is a soloist."
Alima
"As soon as two people work on art they make a compromise. It is possible to force it and make art together – but it is a kind of rape."
Elisha Volotsky
"An artist is a world unto himself. A movement can be created with other artists, but afterwards the artist will always be alone with himself, confronting the work."
Dan Partouche
"I have never yet seen cooperative work that was a success. The attempts that were made remain as kinds of games. It can be a more or less successful game. I believe that the work itself is a thing that is basically individual. I think that when artists are under pressure — don't know where to go, and search for help, from the point of view of 'what next?' — then joint projects begin. Personally, I don't believe in it."
Shmuel Bak
"There is no place for joint efforts between artists. Art is an individual expression, since the 19th century and still today. I don't think a personal expression can be cooperative ... joint work is one thing and joint creativity is another. When different people work on art either one dominates the other or there is a "tossed salad". I don't
believe in the identity of the personal expression of two people."
Raffi Lavie
"Nothing serious can come out of it. You can't call that `a work`. It isn't a game — I don't want to call it something childish — but it seems to me that there is something of the playful about it."
Yossef Zaritsky
"Joint work doesn't interest me. I am not in favor of partners at all. The possibility of working together depends on the scope of the work. A masterpiece can only be made alone, but you can do something 'acceptable' together. Together one always suffers on the other's account... one works on the other somehow. I don't think one artist needs another. It is not a group working on something from various aspects."
Igael Tumarkin
Other artists, however, saw the cooperative effort as having very positive aspects:
"I think, in general, that it is very interesting to work with other people, and to do things together. Not in the way that each does his own thing, but rather what is
interesting is where the meeting point occurs and how to solve the place where there is overlapping."
Arie Azene
"In our reality two artists working together is a strange thing, It is an exception. But I think it is a beautiful thing. Sometimes I have dreams that I sit with another person who is close to me and I can work with him, to give him something of myself and he gives me something of himself so that sometimes joint works can be created."
Izi Crudo
"There is definitely a place for cooperative work. The biggest individualists need it .... When I paint by myself, everyone that comes in bothers me. When you work together, a contact is created. When I teach, I can also work with others, but when I paint alone, everyone that enters disturbs me."
Avigdor Stematsky
"I place great importance on two artists working together, and especially when they come from very different points of view in art, if they are capable of sitting and working together with a fertile mutual influence. There needn't and shouldn't be a place for narrow-mindedness between two artists, nor jealousy either."
Menachem Gueffen
"I think it is always a fertilizing thing. I won't say that I only like to sit and do things like that with other artists — it is a spice for my work. All of a sudden, when an idea
comes to work with another person, you then have to think in another framework, you have to take their mind into account also."
Amnon Ben Haim
Several of the artists were unsure or, having expressed a specific view, added their reservations:
"In general a joint effort is possible, but of course, it is peripheral. It can never be a main activity... but it really does broaden one a bit and that's good."
Larry Abramson
"In principle, it's wonderful. But the problem between artists in personal relations, in the long run, is who will receive the credit. How long will people agree to go half
and half?"
Gad Ullman
"When an artist works, one of the elements of working is authority .... The authority to say, 'well that's enough', 'that's not enough', 'this is it', 'this is my statement` ,...
When you work with another artist you get an additional authority. When two people are excited about an idea, it confirms, On the other hand, it is restricting. In a way it
is a frustration. You have all this authority and nowhere to go because this one is pulling this way and that one is pulling that way. It's not so much more ideas, but more authority."
Joshua Neustein
It is interesting to note Kadishman's rather surprising opinion concerning the cooperative effort. "Joint work is possible on certain things, in certain thoughts, in certain periods; I don't particularly want to work with other artists.
Kadishman gave each artist a photo-offset proof of one of his telephone page prints. Since each artist did not work simultaneously with Kadishman on the page but
rather consecutively, it is legitimate to question whether the finished work can actually be considered a joint venture. One might argue, for example, that Kadishman
simply presented artists with a raw material, background, or frame for their own work. Several of the artists who participated had, in fact, been using reproductions and other printed materials for some time. The artists were asked if they thought that the final result of the work on the Kadishman proof was, indeed, a cooperative effort. Here too, responses ran the gamut from absolutely affirmative to vehemently negative.
"I do not see it as two artists working together. I see it asmy work and his work and that of the one who arranged the telephone page in an accidental or non-accidental form."
Michael Eiseman
"You must consider things in the order in which they were done. First of all the idea is Menashe's.... What is here is a work of Menashe's, onto which were commissioned, actually commissioned in the correct sense of the word, works by other artists. And a joint thing was created, that has in it part of both of them but the work is a joint
work…"
Arie Azene
"It's like Menashe sitting on a bench and inviting me to sit on a bench with him. So what happens is a certain amount of pushing and pulling has to take place so we can make room for one another on that bench. In this page he is very much there, and that became the initial awareness, to meet with him without destroying it, and on the other hand without submitting to it ... I needed to do something that would add an aspect of it. Maybe not necessarily an aspect Menashe had in mind."
Joshua Neustein
"As regards the work with Menashe, I see it as a creation of Menashe's and an experience that I took part in,"
Bar Kochba Doktori
"I see it as a work of mine on a work of his... but it is also a joint work. The material is his, the idea is his, and on that I did something, But without him I would not have
drawn that composition."
Liliane Klapisch
"I consider this print to be an overlay of my aesthetics on Kadishmans Thus it is a joint work."
Gerard Marx
"It belongs to both of us. He gave me the pages, I continued."
Lea Nikel
"We didn't work together on one sheet. That's misleading. I received a texture from him and I did this."
Ami Shavit
"This page is mine, but at an earlier stage it was his. It is mine, but Menashe held me on his shoulders, as if there were a wall and you can see me peeking over it, but he
holds me down. He certainly exists here, that must be, otherwise there wouldn't be a work."
Larry Abramson
"The work is an act of homage. I see the page like an officer's uniform and my work like a medal of honor on it."
Michel Wolman
Referring to the aim of the Kadishman experiment, Arie Azene remarked, "The interesting thing is how each artist will relate to a given, each in his own handwriting." Seen as a whole, the most striking aspect of the project is, indeed, the surprising number of valid and successful solutions to the challenge. It is noteworthy that no particular style lent itself better than any other to integration with the print. Lyrical Abstractionists an Conceptual artists alike found ways of applying their own
approaches in imaginative and creative ways. What is clear, however, is that while some artists had little or no problem combining their work with the given page, others
remained aloof or estranged from it to varying degrees. This appears to be the result of the personality of the participant rather than his mode of working.
The artists who made an honest effort to achieve a joint work reacted to a double catalyst. One was the proof itself, the qualities and connotations of which proved to be
particularly open and enticing. The second catalyst was Kadishman. Though he is certainly not the leader of a movement or style, he was capable of enlisting a large number of artists to work on his proofs even before the museum decided to exhibit them. He asked artists, old and young, veteran and novice, to do something on his page and none refused. Often artists said, "How can you refuse Menashe?" This may be why it was Kadishman, and not another artist, who arrived at the idea of this experiment.
In the course of being interviewed, the artists frequently voiced the complaint that a feeling of isolation exists among themselves, and in their relationship with the art institutions in Israel and the art world abroad. The Kadishman experiment brings all of these elements together in a single exhibition. In the final analysis, this project enabled artists to fulfill the need for dialogue and interaction transcending the boundaries of various artistic convictions. This perhaps, was the moving force behind
the Kadishman Connection.
Stephanie Rachum
Nurit Shilo-Cohen
List of` Participants
Abramson, Larry Kadishman, Maya
Agassi, Meir Kadishman, Menashe
Agor, Alexander Kaiser, Raffi
Agor, Ya'akov Kali, jeeny
Alima Katz, Avner
Alkara, Ovadia Kerman, Danny
Antebi, Musa Khalil, Muhammad
Apollo, Batia Kirili, Alain
Araten, Harry Klapisch, Liliane
Argov, Michael Knigin, Michael
Arman Koren, Shlomo
Ayal, Avishai Kupferman, Moshe
Azene, Arie Laury, Micha
Bak, Anna Lavie, Raffi
Bak, Shmuel Levi, Benjamin
Basis, Mari Levine, Les
Beeri, Tuvia Lifshitz, Uri
Ben-Amotz, Dan Lubin, Arie
Ben Haim, Amnon Margalit, Aviva
Beniano, Gabriel Marx, Gerard
Beniano, Hanim Merkado, Nissim
Berest, Deganyt Miller, Nachume
Bergner, Audrey Na'aman, Michal
Bergner, Yosl Neustein, Joshua
Berkowitz, Amnon Newman, Arnold
Bunim, Shmuel Nikel, Lea
Chemeche, George Ofek, Avraham
Christo Orion, Ezra
Chryssa Partouche, Dan
Cohen, Mirit Raz, Dana
Cohen, Nahoum Rikman, Tamara
Cohen Gan, Pinchas Rivera, Ricardo
Couzijn, Wessel Rubin, Yadid
Crudo, Izi Schwartz, Buky
Diamant, Yoram Segal, George
Doktori, Bar Kochba Segan—Cohen, Michael
Dorchin, Ya'acov Shavid, Ariella
Druks, Michael Shavit, Ami
Eiseman, Michael Shavit, Rahel
El Hanani, Ya'acov Smilansky, Noemi
Eshel-Gershuni, Bianka Spitzer, Serge
Feingersh, Oded Stelvig, Frank
Fleminger, Irvin Stematsky, Avigdor
Frenkel, Nora Stetmer, Uri
Garbuz, Yair Streichman, Yehezkel
Gat, Eliahu Tevet, Nahum
Cershuni, Moshe Tumarkin, Igael
Giladi, Aharon Ullman, Gad
Gitlin, Michael Ullman, Micha
Gross, Michael Uri, Aviva
Griinherg, Maty Vaadia, Boaz
Gueffen, Menachem Vitkin, Shlomo
Hecker, Zvi Volotsky, Elisha
Hendler, David Weinfeld, Yocheved
Holtzman, Shimshon Wolman, Michel
Inlender, Avraham Zafrir, Israel
janco, Marcel Zaritsky, Yossef
Kadishman, Bila Zbarsky, Felix
1970-72
- Kadishman begins drawing on pages of the Manhattan telephone directory in his New York hotel room
- Kadishman continues to draw on telephone pages in the cities through which he passes while traveling in the United States.
1972
- Enlarged telephone pages are exhibited as part of Kadishman's exhibition at the Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany.
1972-74
- Kadishman draws on pages from Israeli telephone directories. He uses various materials and methods and also creates three dimensional works from telephone pages. The subject is summarized in a series of monochrome works.
1975
- In honor of the tenth anniversary of the Israel Museum, Kadishman prepares a print based on a crossed—out telephone page and a photograph of the Israel Museum.
The edition is presented as a gift to the Museum.
- During the process of printing, proofs of various colors are pulled. Kadishman now works on these experimental proofs, approaching them in a manner similar to that in which he had approached the original telephone pages.
- Kadishman gives some of the colored proofs to artist-friends who happen by his studio and asks them to work on them. Among the first artists to work on these proofs are: Mirit Cohen, Arie Azene, Dan Partouche, Michael Eiseman, and Michael Wolman.
1976
- As the pages begin to pile up in his studio, Kadishman conceives of the idea of a large scale project in which a great many artists will work on his proofs. He fixes unofficial rules. Each artist will receive two pages to work on. The finished products will be signed jointly by Kadishman and the collaborating artist; each will keep one page.
- Israel Museum staff members see a group of these works in Kadishman's studio and begin considering the idea of exhibiting the project.
- Kadishman continues to distribute proofs, but now tells artists that the works will be exhibited at the Museum. This new fact is taken into consideration by the participating artists.
- Preparatory work on the exhibition begins. Artists are interviewed and asked a variety of questions relating to their work and what they did with the Kadishman proof, Emphasis is placed on questions concerning the cooperative effort between artists.
1977
Kadishman continues to distribute proofs in Israel and abroad while work on the exhibition continues.
1978
In October, the deadline for works to be included in the exhibition, Kadishman transfers over 100 pages to the Israel Museum.
1979
The exhibition opens at the Israel Museum on February 13.
- Kadishman continues to distribute proofs.
This exhibition displays the works which more than one hundred artists executed on proofs of a Menashe Kadishman print based on a telephone page. Since this print was very much a part of a long series of works which Kadishman did on telephone pages, this catalogue begins with the history of the evolution of their use within Kadishman's work. Then comes an analysis of the ways in which the artists approached the proof, followed by a representative sample of the collaborators' solutions for integrating their own work into Kadishman's print. The last section examines aspects of the history of joint efforts among modern artists, and presents the opinions of those who participated in the Kadishman experiment on the subject of cooperative endeavors.
Kadishman's Telephone Pages
Kadishman began to work on telephone pages while in New York in 1970. Speaking of them he recalled, "That's when it began more seriously, as an obsession, although I
had already worked on them before, here and there. It began when I came to New York. I couldn't sleep because of the time change, and I looked at Manhattan at night. It was already four in the morning. l couldn't sleep and I wanted to draw. I looked for paper but didn't find any. I began to scribble on the telephone book. I scribbled a bit
on the page and then afterwards I began working on the page itself. I related to each column as if it were a building, a skyscraper. Later l related to the page itself, not what I saw around it, rather to what there was on the page. I arrived at a whole landscape, paths between the letters, a cardiogram of the page. What interested me in
the pages was the anonymity of the people. I would see Smith, Smith, Smith and each of them was a human being, a personality... I crossed them out in the beginning,
because I didn't care about all those Smiths .... "(1)
At this stage the pages were raw material. Kadishman focused on the visual structure of each page as the typesetter had arranged it.
He erased names with horizontal lines, encircled spaces between names, or related to the irregular right—hand margins formed by the columns of names as if to a landscape of mountains or to an electrocardiogram.
(All quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from interviews with the artists.)
Later, the telephone page works became a kind of personal diary. Kadishman made himself a telephone page from each of the places he passed through in his travels in
the United States and throughout the world. Sometimes he even used pages from the places that people he met and befriended came from, even if he hadn't been there himself. On such pages, all of the names are crossed out except the name of the place and that of the person he knew in or from that place. He collected these pages in a notebook and made himself books of telephone pages.
When he worked on Israeli telephone pages he did not cross out names. He drew arches above them, thereby putting them in what resembled cages. The names were suddenly less anonymous. Only later did he succeed in bringing himself to cross out names on these pages as well, but he did this with transparent colors so that it was still possible to clearly make out the listings underneath.
In 1972 Kadishman exhibited enlarged telephone pages at the Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld. Later, while hospitalized for an appendix operation, he executed a large series of telephone pages, this time not as a diary, but rather as variations on a theme. In addition to crossing out names with traditional media such as pen, crayon, and pastel chalk, he also obliterated names with staples, glue applied from a syringe, self-adhesive labels, and so on. The telephone page series came to an end around 1974 with a group of monochromatic works. The whole page was completely covered with a single opaque color; the listings can hardly be seen through the paint.
In addition, Kadishman made a number of three-dimensional works using telephone pages. These include the sculpture with pieces of telephone pages stuck into the cracks of a stone, just as notes are crammed into cracks in the Wailing Wall. He also dealt with this latter theme in a number of prints. Another three-dimensional example is the cylindrical model for a monument that he created by piling up circles cut out from telephone pages. or this model he said, "I used telephone pages. I liked the material because 1 felt a relationship with it. This was to be a monument, and I hate monuments. I thought, as an idea, to make a monument from pages, these kinds of
pages, with names.... "
Kadishman's use of telephone pages not only expresses artistic values, but also the character of the man himself. Kadishman loves to talk on the telephone. His many
notebooks and the walls of his kitchen are covered with names and telephone numbers. By means of the telephone, he keeps in contact with everyone. Arie Azene
spoke of this Kadishman connection in metaphorical terms: "He is like a spider that spins a web that gets to all kinds of places. He is a big fat spider, but the webs that he
spins are strong."
Approaches to Kadishman's Proof
The pages which each artist received from Menashe Kadishman were proofs, in various stages of the printing process, of a prim he had done for the Israel Museum. For this print (Fig. 1 and back cover) he took a telephone page on which he had crossed out names and added a photograph of the museum and a section from the
Jerusalem telephone book which included the telephone number of the museum. This collage was then enlarged and printed by a photo-offset process. Almost all of the
proofs had a long narrow blank section in the center where the photograph of the Israel Museum would appear in the final version of the print (Fig. 2). Although all of the proofs originated from the same matrix, the number of colors in which they had been printed varied. The challenge which confronted the participating artists was to
find a means of integrating their own work into that of the given page.
Before arriving at a solution, however, the artists first had to decide what part of the surface of the page was at their disposal. In this respect it is possible to discern four basic approaches to the page: 1) artists who worked only in the blank white section in the center; 2) those who used the black section and a small portion of the printed page; 3) artists who saw the whole page as their held of action; 4) those who perceived the page as a raw material to be recomposed in a way different from the original conception.
Michael Eiseman"s page (Fig. 3) exemplifies the approach of those artists who remained exclusively within the blank section. Eiseman explained, "I worked in the white area, an area that looked like a piece of paper before I worked on it. I did my work without taking into consideration the page itself within the place that can be called 'the space for rent".... In this given area I put a piece of my work from a certain period." Bar Kochba Doktori (Fig. 4) approached the page in a similar manner. He also kept his drawing scrupulously within the borders of the white section, which he regarded as his sole held of action.
Oded Feingersh's work (Fig. 5) is characteristic of those artists who used the blank section but extended their work beyond its borders to selected and limited areas. In the blank section there is a drawing of a masked Figure staring at a burning match; at the bottom of the page appears a drawing of a belt. The artist's explanation was, "I covered over the bottom of the page in order to connect it with the figure... so that it wouldn't be enclosed by Menashe Kadishman, so that he wouldn't conquer me completely." This approach also finds expression in Alima's rendition (Fig. 6). She worked mainly in the center of the page, but continued drawing on some of the crossed-out names.
"That was the only clean section on the page, and I usually work on white paper.... I wanted to integrate my work, so that it would not be an isolated segment within the page. So I hinted along the edges and helped him to continue to erase a little."
Ovadia Alkara's work (Fig. 7) shows the approach of those artists who saw the whole page as open territory. In his collage, he peeled off vertical strips from the surface of the Kadishman print and attached photographs. Alkara commented, "Visually speaking, it is impossible to see the page other than as a whole. To see it only as a white patch is incorrect." Another example is the page done by Liliane Klapisch (Fig.8). She drew over the whole page, while using forms within it as elements in her own composition.
Larry Abramson's work (Fig. 9) demonstrates how some artists related to the page as a material and used elements from it in a new work different in concept from the original print. Abramson turned the page over, made two vertical cuts with a knife, and folded down the rectangle that was created between them. The result was a white
page, at the top of which was a rectangle containing a section of the original page. "My solution hinted at and gave enough information about a different kind of action that was found on the other side of the page. My action is in a way rather dry in comparison to Menashe's which was personally involved and capricious.... The connection is a chain. He took something arbitrary, changed it into something of Kadishman, threw it at me as something arbitrary, and I changed it into Abramson." Micha Ullman's work (Fig. l0) is another such example. The whole page is covered with grey gouache. At the bottom of the page he pasted on a small section from the erased names. This rectangle is echoed in lines which he drew in the paint while it was still wet
Relating to the Print
Within the given proof, there were many elements that artists could choose to relate to: the character of Kadishman's scribbling, the horizontal lines which cross out the directory entries, the forms of the columns of names, the irregular lines tracing the margins of the row of names, the shape of the blank section, the color-tones of the page, the theme of erased names, telephone numbers, etc. Although the number of elements artists found to emphasize was numerous, two basic attitudes can be discerned: that of artists who focused on the formal elements of the proof, and that of those who related to its content or subject matter. The dividing line between these two approaches is not clear cut. Among those artists who emphasized the formal aspects, some also hinted at thematic elements — and vice versa. In most cases, however, one of the basic attitudes dominated.
The Formal Approach
Artists who took the formal approach related primarily to the lines, shapes or colors of Kadishman's proof. Arie Azene's page (Fig. 11) belongs to this category. Azene received the Kadishman proof during a period when he was dealing with linear subjects. It was thus natural for him to arrive at a solution by involving the lines on the proof. Beginning from the center of the blank section, he laid down rows of parallel horizontal lines of white acrylic paint which extended into part of the print and repeated the shape of the blank section. The paint lines add to an connect up with those on the proof to create an equilibrium between the form of the unprinted section
and the page as a whole, Although in his own work he used accumulations of lines to emphasize the rhythmic repetition of certain simple landscape elements, Azene saw
a clear parallel between this and what was happening on the telephone page print. "The involvement of man is what builds the structure in a landscape as it does on a
page."
Hanita Benjano (Fig. 12) sewed a network of black parallel horizontal threads over the print. Despite the emphasis on the empty white space, some of the threads, especially at the bottom, traverse the whole page. She thus bound the work to the horizontal lines of the original page while also creating a new linear composition.
The proof which the artists received is dominated by elongated, irregular, vertical rectangles. Both the columns of names and numbers and the blank area take this form.
Some artists, such as Shlomo Koren and Ovadia Alkara, related to this shape and repeated it in a variety of ways as their means of integrating their work into the given page.
Shlomo Koren (Fig. I3) superimposed shaded black columns over the entire surface of the print. He related to the calligraphy of the page as structure. His drawing also
adds an element of movement to the page. "My first reaction was to a static page that deals with a text that seemed abstract to me. What I did was to give the printed word, the text, somewhat more movement." In the blank area, three prominent columns are cut by horizontal scribble—like lines which can be seen as continuations of either the names or the erasures. Koren said that he reacted to the anonymous names on the page by writing what could be a letter to an anonymous Mr. X.
Alkara (Fig. 7) added a series of vertical elements to the page. First he glued a color photograph onto the upper right corner. Then he wet the paper and peeled narrow,
parallel, vertical columns from the upper layer of the paper. He felt that the tearing process was similar to that which Kadishman had used when he crossed out the names. To the torn and printed columns which emerged he then taped cut-out black-and-white photographs of skyscrapers whose forms were roughly the same as those of
the columns on the page. The nameless passersby in the color photograph and the endless floors of the skyscrapers are for him thematically connected with the anonymous names on the telephone page. So, too, is the title at the top, "Visit Greenwich Village", which he cut out from a subway poster. It reminded him of a place that people throng to see but which is actually barren. Alkara did a series of drawings which were superimposed on blueprint plans of the World Trade Center. He felt a strong connection between what he did on the telephone page and his own work which made use of the structure of the plan as a starting point for his composition.
The artists who chose to use the color-tones of the telephone page as a connecting link; all tended towards abstraction and emphasized color in their own work. An
instance of this kind of approach is found in the composition by Lea Nikel (Fig. 14). She pasted a watercolor of her own onto the telephone page. The watercolor covered the whole upper left side and the blank area completely. The telephone page in this case is a blue proof, and Lee Nikel`s watercolor is dominated by the same blue tones. At its center there is a circular movement in blue strokes which contrasts to the verticality of the page. However, a yellow frame around the edges of the watercolor emphasizes the rectangular aspect of her paper and echoes the elongated rectangle of the telephone page. Within the context of the telephone page, several of the blue brush strokes towards the bottom and the free vertical strokes on the right become echoes of the erasures on the print.
A number of watercolors were scattered at random on Lea Nikel`s studio Floor when Kadishman arrived with the telephone page. "When I saw his page I immediately thought of my watercolors. The color of my drawing continues the letters and colors and the whole spirit of the print. It was as if it were born for it; as if l had seen beforehand that Menashe would come and l would have to add this." She and Kadishman pasted the watercolor onto the print together. Although she had always made collages, she did not see the pasting of her watercolor onto the page as a collage, but rather as a continuation of what Menashe had started.
For Avigdor Stematsky (Fig. 15) this was the first time that he had ever worked on anything other than a clean surface. The page he received was yellow and green-black. To this he added his own yellow, blue, and black patches in the blank area and on the print. He based his connection on the introduction of additional, similar or
contrasting color areas in a way which viably combined with the existing composition and colors.
The Iconographic Approach
This approach applies to those artists whose connection to Kadishman's work is by means of the subject or content of the page. This may be a straightforward reference to the telephone and telephone numbers or, on a more complex level, an interpretation of the erased names, the anonymous man, and the theme of communication. Portraits of Kadishman or quotes from his other works of art are occasionally included.
Among those artists who related to the telephone itself or its accoutrements are Avner Katz and Michel Wolman. Katz (Fig. 16) drew an anthropomorphic telephone receiver sticking out its tongue. Wolman (Fig. 17) cast telephone tokens in white latex which was in the shape of the blank area. The proof he used contained the
photograph of the museum, and Wolman hung the white rubber on top of it so it could be lifted up from the bottom. Wolman explained that the tokens were for calling all the people whose numbers appeared on the page, In his own work at this time, he had been executing envelopes and mailboxes in various materials. He was interested not only in their possibilities of visual expression, but also in the idea of communication. "The envelopes pass on the thoughts of people, a telephone does the same thing. You talk; you exchange thoughts when you call."
Michael Druks' work (Fig. 18) also deals with the subject of communication but in a different way. On this page there are sets of colored dots. In each set one dot was pasted on the photograph of the museum and the other on one of the erased names. A line which connects them links the museum with the anonymous names in the telephone directory.
Some artists related to the erased or crossed-out names. They made reference either to the symbolic killing implicit in this action, a tradition which already existed in Ancient Egypt, or to the theme of the anonymous man. Ami Shavit's work (Fig. 19) focuses on the figure of G.I. Joe, the anonymous American soldier, whom he associated with the numbers in a telephone book. The figure is shown twice, once as a full figure and once as a white shadow. Such figures first appeared in a series of prints which Shavit did after the 1973 war, based on a wooden doll of G.I. Joe he had bought.
Batia Apollo (Fig. 20) pasted on a photograph of a skyscraper with endless windows which suggest countless inhabitants. Thus she created a picture characteristic of a modern metropolis. On the right side of the building, tiny people are jumping from the windows to commit suicide.
Shmuel Bak (Fig. 21) also hinted at the theme of death. He drew a crossed-out pear on a tombstone. Bak explained, "What happens on this page is sad. The elimination of
identity. On the page with the erased names I saw a kind of gravestone - the murder of a quantity of people. I knew a gravestone would be the correct thing. Also, the white form invited this idea. I took an element that is already identified with my work, the metaphorical element of the man-fruit, and I again created a tombstone".
Gerard Marx's work (Fig, 22) also investigated the subject of death. It is connected to the project ' Jerusalem Shots' that he did in 1976. For that project, he took photographs of Jerusalem street scenes to Kibbutz Merom HaGolan where he shot at them with a rifle. Of the work he did on the proof he commented, "Kadishman asked me to complete his page, I noticed that the page was from Manhattan telephone book and on this was pasted a piece of a Jerusalem telephone book. As with my 'Jerusalem
Shots', I took the Kadishman print to a firing range near Bethlehem, I shot at it with an M-1 rifle, and I splattered it with earth."
Other works touch on Kadishman himself the man and his work. Uri Lifshitz (Fig. 23) and Arie Lubin (Fig. 24) drew portraits of Kadishman on the proof. Yehezkel Streichman (Fig.25) painted trees, and on the right side cut out a tree similar to Kadishmans cut—out trees which appeared, for example, in "The Forest of Laundry"
exhibited at the Israel Museum, summer 1975. Streichman said of his work, "I cut the page and made a tree for him, the way he translates trees, and I added the way I translate trees ..., I did a great many watercolors like this with trees, made with the finger, with dots like that. So here are both my solution to trees and the solution that I saw Kadishman do many times."
Micha Laury (Fig. 26) did not relate to subjects connected with the telephone or Kadishman, but rather to the Israel Museum as it appears in the photograph on the print. He covered over the photograph of the museum in grey gouache and pasted on small pieces of wood which repeated the location of the museum buildings.
Joshua Neustein (Fig. 27) also used the museum building, although his approach was quite different. He covered Kadishman's page with an additional sheet of white paper
and cut a window through which the white area in the center of the original page and a little of the colored page bordering it can be seen. Above the window there is an exact pencil drawing of the museum buildings. Neustein explained that his work relates to the printing process. The page he received from Kadishman was at a certain stage in the printing process. Neustein seemingly continued the process, using the principle that an area already printed must be covered over while the area slated for printing remains exposed. The sketch of the museum was intended to show the printer what will go into the exposed area.
Aviva Margalit is the only artist who related to the experiment itself (Fig. 28). In addition to drawing on the page, she appended her suggestions for further possibilities in a kind of notebook containing small scale xeroxes of Kadishman's page. She left the last pages untouched, and invited the spectators to make their own suggestions. Thus she repeated Kadishman`s action of distributing proofs to others. A few artists did not attempt to relate to the proof in any of the ways described above, but rather executed on it totally independent works that would have looked the same had a clean sheet of white paper been used.
Long Distance
Kadishman also asked a number of artists from abroad to do something on his proof. Among those who participated were Arman, Christo, Les Levine, and George Segal. Arman (Fig. 29) printed piled-up hand guns on the page. Christo (Fig. 30) wrapped the proof by rolling it printed side out, covering it with clear plastic, and tying
the package with twine. Les Levine (Fig. 31) pasted a color photograph of himself on the blank section. George Segal (Fig. 32) did a "stomach print". He inked Kadishman's very ample stomach and then pressed it against the center of the page.
On Cooperative Effort
The history of modern art contains many instances of artists working together either on specific problems or on each other's works. The Picasso—Braque experiment
around 1910, which spawned the revolutionary discoveries of Cubism, is probably one of the best known examples. So closely did the two artists collaborate that it is often impossible to discern who first conceived a given idea. For a time neither signed his work, and Braque admitted, "There was a moment when we had difficulty in recognizing our own paintings."(2)
Another famous joint effort was a game the Surrealists
named, the "Exquisite Corpse". This consisted of passing a piece of paper around among several people, each of whom added a phrase or part of a drawing, and then
folded the paper so that none of the other participants had any idea of the nature of the preceding contributions. Man Ray, Tanguy, and Miro were among the artists who took part. The object was to release the mind's metaphorical potentialities through the resulting, surprising juxtapositions. But Breton noted that what additionally excited them in these composite productions was "the conviction that at the very least, they were stamped with a uniquely collective authority ...."(3)
The strong desire for a collective effort arose again in the late fifties and continued throughout the sixties. In part this was due to a general reaction by artists against the
super-individualistic aspects of Abstract Expressionism. For many artists, the collective idea was also congruent with their socio-political beliefs. Most of the groups that stressed cooperative efforts were also interested in optical and other scientifically-oriented phenomena, and tried to emulate the corporate endeavor of scientists in their common projects.
In the late sixties, Israel also had its share of artists who experimented in working together in large or small groups. One of these attempts was an exhibition entitled
"Labyrinth", held at the Israel Museum in the winter of 1967. Exhibition Curator Yona Fischer defined it as "An attempt to bring seven artists together, to think and create collectively."" Many other examples of this kind of activity existed at the time. The "1O +" group held several exhibitions, each one around a single set theme.
"Mashkof", a group of Jerusalem artists, poets, and composers active at the close of the last decade, held an exhibition at the Engel Gallery in which these three disciplines interacted. Each artist worked with a poet; the poet wrote his poem on a lithographic stone, and the artist illustrated it. The works were shown to the accompaniment of music composed by Yosi Mar Haim to fit the poetry.
One of the most recent cooperative efforts, carried out on an international scale, was Herbert Distel's "Museum of Drawers" (shown at the Israel Museum, winter 1978). Distel took a chest of drawers he found and converted it into a mini—museum of twentieth century art. For several years he collected miniature works by speaking or
corresponding with artists. Eventually over 500 artists sent him works to exhibit in the 'rooms' of his museum,
Though a great many more experiments could be mentioned, that proposed by Menashe Kadishman is unique and differs from all those which preceded it. For
the first time, all the participating artists were faced with a single work by a living artist with whom they were personally acquainted. Since these artists were not members of a group, and their ideas and methods of presentation differed widely, each had to find a way of integrating his own style and temperament into the Kadishman print. Many of the participating artists were later interviewed by the organizers of the exhibition and asked their opinion of cooperative efforts between artists in general and of this experiment in particular.
Some artists contended that cooperative work is untenable:
"Art is the most egotistical field that exists. There is no orchestra; everyone is a soloist."
Alima
"As soon as two people work on art they make a compromise. It is possible to force it and make art together – but it is a kind of rape."
Elisha Volotsky
"An artist is a world unto himself. A movement can be created with other artists, but afterwards the artist will always be alone with himself, confronting the work."
Dan Partouche
"I have never yet seen cooperative work that was a success. The attempts that were made remain as kinds of games. It can be a more or less successful game. I believe that the work itself is a thing that is basically individual. I think that when artists are under pressure — don't know where to go, and search for help, from the point of view of 'what next?' — then joint projects begin. Personally, I don't believe in it."
Shmuel Bak
"There is no place for joint efforts between artists. Art is an individual expression, since the 19th century and still today. I don't think a personal expression can be cooperative ... joint work is one thing and joint creativity is another. When different people work on art either one dominates the other or there is a "tossed salad". I don't
believe in the identity of the personal expression of two people."
Raffi Lavie
"Nothing serious can come out of it. You can't call that `a work`. It isn't a game — I don't want to call it something childish — but it seems to me that there is something of the playful about it."
Yossef Zaritsky
"Joint work doesn't interest me. I am not in favor of partners at all. The possibility of working together depends on the scope of the work. A masterpiece can only be made alone, but you can do something 'acceptable' together. Together one always suffers on the other's account... one works on the other somehow. I don't think one artist needs another. It is not a group working on something from various aspects."
Igael Tumarkin
Other artists, however, saw the cooperative effort as having very positive aspects:
"I think, in general, that it is very interesting to work with other people, and to do things together. Not in the way that each does his own thing, but rather what is
interesting is where the meeting point occurs and how to solve the place where there is overlapping."
Arie Azene
"In our reality two artists working together is a strange thing, It is an exception. But I think it is a beautiful thing. Sometimes I have dreams that I sit with another person who is close to me and I can work with him, to give him something of myself and he gives me something of himself so that sometimes joint works can be created."
Izi Crudo
"There is definitely a place for cooperative work. The biggest individualists need it .... When I paint by myself, everyone that comes in bothers me. When you work together, a contact is created. When I teach, I can also work with others, but when I paint alone, everyone that enters disturbs me."
Avigdor Stematsky
"I place great importance on two artists working together, and especially when they come from very different points of view in art, if they are capable of sitting and working together with a fertile mutual influence. There needn't and shouldn't be a place for narrow-mindedness between two artists, nor jealousy either."
Menachem Gueffen
"I think it is always a fertilizing thing. I won't say that I only like to sit and do things like that with other artists — it is a spice for my work. All of a sudden, when an idea
comes to work with another person, you then have to think in another framework, you have to take their mind into account also."
Amnon Ben Haim
Several of the artists were unsure or, having expressed a specific view, added their reservations:
"In general a joint effort is possible, but of course, it is peripheral. It can never be a main activity... but it really does broaden one a bit and that's good."
Larry Abramson
"In principle, it's wonderful. But the problem between artists in personal relations, in the long run, is who will receive the credit. How long will people agree to go half
and half?"
Gad Ullman
"When an artist works, one of the elements of working is authority .... The authority to say, 'well that's enough', 'that's not enough', 'this is it', 'this is my statement` ,...
When you work with another artist you get an additional authority. When two people are excited about an idea, it confirms, On the other hand, it is restricting. In a way it
is a frustration. You have all this authority and nowhere to go because this one is pulling this way and that one is pulling that way. It's not so much more ideas, but more authority."
Joshua Neustein
It is interesting to note Kadishman's rather surprising opinion concerning the cooperative effort. "Joint work is possible on certain things, in certain thoughts, in certain periods; I don't particularly want to work with other artists.
Kadishman gave each artist a photo-offset proof of one of his telephone page prints. Since each artist did not work simultaneously with Kadishman on the page but
rather consecutively, it is legitimate to question whether the finished work can actually be considered a joint venture. One might argue, for example, that Kadishman
simply presented artists with a raw material, background, or frame for their own work. Several of the artists who participated had, in fact, been using reproductions and other printed materials for some time. The artists were asked if they thought that the final result of the work on the Kadishman proof was, indeed, a cooperative effort. Here too, responses ran the gamut from absolutely affirmative to vehemently negative.
"I do not see it as two artists working together. I see it asmy work and his work and that of the one who arranged the telephone page in an accidental or non-accidental form."
Michael Eiseman
"You must consider things in the order in which they were done. First of all the idea is Menashe's.... What is here is a work of Menashe's, onto which were commissioned, actually commissioned in the correct sense of the word, works by other artists. And a joint thing was created, that has in it part of both of them but the work is a joint
work…"
Arie Azene
"It's like Menashe sitting on a bench and inviting me to sit on a bench with him. So what happens is a certain amount of pushing and pulling has to take place so we can make room for one another on that bench. In this page he is very much there, and that became the initial awareness, to meet with him without destroying it, and on the other hand without submitting to it ... I needed to do something that would add an aspect of it. Maybe not necessarily an aspect Menashe had in mind."
Joshua Neustein
"As regards the work with Menashe, I see it as a creation of Menashe's and an experience that I took part in,"
Bar Kochba Doktori
"I see it as a work of mine on a work of his... but it is also a joint work. The material is his, the idea is his, and on that I did something, But without him I would not have
drawn that composition."
Liliane Klapisch
"I consider this print to be an overlay of my aesthetics on Kadishmans Thus it is a joint work."
Gerard Marx
"It belongs to both of us. He gave me the pages, I continued."
Lea Nikel
"We didn't work together on one sheet. That's misleading. I received a texture from him and I did this."
Ami Shavit
"This page is mine, but at an earlier stage it was his. It is mine, but Menashe held me on his shoulders, as if there were a wall and you can see me peeking over it, but he
holds me down. He certainly exists here, that must be, otherwise there wouldn't be a work."
Larry Abramson
"The work is an act of homage. I see the page like an officer's uniform and my work like a medal of honor on it."
Michel Wolman
Referring to the aim of the Kadishman experiment, Arie Azene remarked, "The interesting thing is how each artist will relate to a given, each in his own handwriting." Seen as a whole, the most striking aspect of the project is, indeed, the surprising number of valid and successful solutions to the challenge. It is noteworthy that no particular style lent itself better than any other to integration with the print. Lyrical Abstractionists an Conceptual artists alike found ways of applying their own
approaches in imaginative and creative ways. What is clear, however, is that while some artists had little or no problem combining their work with the given page, others
remained aloof or estranged from it to varying degrees. This appears to be the result of the personality of the participant rather than his mode of working.
The artists who made an honest effort to achieve a joint work reacted to a double catalyst. One was the proof itself, the qualities and connotations of which proved to be
particularly open and enticing. The second catalyst was Kadishman. Though he is certainly not the leader of a movement or style, he was capable of enlisting a large number of artists to work on his proofs even before the museum decided to exhibit them. He asked artists, old and young, veteran and novice, to do something on his page and none refused. Often artists said, "How can you refuse Menashe?" This may be why it was Kadishman, and not another artist, who arrived at the idea of this experiment.
In the course of being interviewed, the artists frequently voiced the complaint that a feeling of isolation exists among themselves, and in their relationship with the art institutions in Israel and the art world abroad. The Kadishman experiment brings all of these elements together in a single exhibition. In the final analysis, this project enabled artists to fulfill the need for dialogue and interaction transcending the boundaries of various artistic convictions. This perhaps, was the moving force behind
the Kadishman Connection.
Stephanie Rachum
Nurit Shilo-Cohen
List of` Participants
Abramson, Larry Kadishman, Maya
Agassi, Meir Kadishman, Menashe
Agor, Alexander Kaiser, Raffi
Agor, Ya'akov Kali, jeeny
Alima Katz, Avner
Alkara, Ovadia Kerman, Danny
Antebi, Musa Khalil, Muhammad
Apollo, Batia Kirili, Alain
Araten, Harry Klapisch, Liliane
Argov, Michael Knigin, Michael
Arman Koren, Shlomo
Ayal, Avishai Kupferman, Moshe
Azene, Arie Laury, Micha
Bak, Anna Lavie, Raffi
Bak, Shmuel Levi, Benjamin
Basis, Mari Levine, Les
Beeri, Tuvia Lifshitz, Uri
Ben-Amotz, Dan Lubin, Arie
Ben Haim, Amnon Margalit, Aviva
Beniano, Gabriel Marx, Gerard
Beniano, Hanim Merkado, Nissim
Berest, Deganyt Miller, Nachume
Bergner, Audrey Na'aman, Michal
Bergner, Yosl Neustein, Joshua
Berkowitz, Amnon Newman, Arnold
Bunim, Shmuel Nikel, Lea
Chemeche, George Ofek, Avraham
Christo Orion, Ezra
Chryssa Partouche, Dan
Cohen, Mirit Raz, Dana
Cohen, Nahoum Rikman, Tamara
Cohen Gan, Pinchas Rivera, Ricardo
Couzijn, Wessel Rubin, Yadid
Crudo, Izi Schwartz, Buky
Diamant, Yoram Segal, George
Doktori, Bar Kochba Segan—Cohen, Michael
Dorchin, Ya'acov Shavid, Ariella
Druks, Michael Shavit, Ami
Eiseman, Michael Shavit, Rahel
El Hanani, Ya'acov Smilansky, Noemi
Eshel-Gershuni, Bianka Spitzer, Serge
Feingersh, Oded Stelvig, Frank
Fleminger, Irvin Stematsky, Avigdor
Frenkel, Nora Stetmer, Uri
Garbuz, Yair Streichman, Yehezkel
Gat, Eliahu Tevet, Nahum
Cershuni, Moshe Tumarkin, Igael
Giladi, Aharon Ullman, Gad
Gitlin, Michael Ullman, Micha
Gross, Michael Uri, Aviva
Griinherg, Maty Vaadia, Boaz
Gueffen, Menachem Vitkin, Shlomo
Hecker, Zvi Volotsky, Elisha
Hendler, David Weinfeld, Yocheved
Holtzman, Shimshon Wolman, Michel
Inlender, Avraham Zafrir, Israel
janco, Marcel Zaritsky, Yossef
Kadishman, Bila Zbarsky, Felix