“Mending” is the theme of environmental sculptor Dani Karavan, whose massive works can be found from the barren deserts of the Negev all the way to gay Paris. And when he says mending, Karavan implies the mending of animals, plants, society and the near and far environments.
Celebrating the artist’s 77th birthday is a Dani Karavan retrospective now being held at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, honoring Karavan’s 60 long years in the arts. We haven’t been there yet, but have seen the posters plastered around the streets of Tel Aviv and have had the pleasure of playing in Karavan’s sculptures a number of times. (We think you have to ‘feel’ them to enjoy them.)
The first one we played in is just outside of Be’er Sheva and is the sculpture pictured above, called Negev Monument. Playing in it was a spiritual experience as we danced in the moonlight and listened to our voices reverberate inside the internal walls.
In the quiet of the desert, it was almost as though we could hear the whispers of Israel’s fallen soldiers. The sculpture – like a bandage on a land that has felt too much violence.
The second one, was in the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim. We laid out a blanket nearby and watched a meteor shower streak across the sky. Karavan’s massive chunks of concrete kept us grounded. Without them, who knows, we might have decided to join the meteors that night.
Have you had a Dani Karavan experience? If so, please share in the comments section.
