Nimrod’s Descendants

The exhibition “Nimrod’s Descendants” sets out to explore Danziger’s iconic `Nimrod` through its new manifestations in Israeli art from the 1950s to the present. Comprising sculptures, paintings, posters, photographs, and video works, the exhibition documents the various “Nimrods” of Israeli art throughout the generations, primarily pitting the physical idealization of Danziger’s Nimrod (represented in the exhibition by a later bronze cast of the sculpture), and its early echoes in the 1950s (such as Yehiel Shemi’s monumental sculpture, Man in the Arava), against more modern treatments, which respond to the Eros, muscularity, and forcefulness of Danziger’s primitive hunter.

Participating artists:
David Adika, Achia Anzi, Boaz Arad, Ilan Averbuch, Shai Azoulay, Ben Bejerano, Guy Briller, Itzhak Danziger, Drora Dominey, Efrat Galnoor, Eli Gur Arie, Erez Israeli, Menashe Kadishman, Rachel Kainy, Efrat Kedem, Beni Kori, Ephraim Moses Lilien, Ido Michaeli, Adi Nes, Avraham Ofek, Jonathan Ofek, Yonat Ofer, Perli Pelzig, Doron Rabina, Itzu Rimmer, Rivka Rinn, Ora Ruven, Amir Shefet, Yehiel Shemi, Ronen Siman Tov, Eliezer Sonnenschein, Igael Tumarkin, Eldad Ziv.

opening: Thursday 27.10.11, at 19:00 pm.

Gallery talk with Gideon Ofrat – Thursday, 12.1.2012 at 6 pm

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue

About the exhibition

In 1939, Itzhak Danziger created `Nimrod`, a sculpture in Nubian sandstone. During the 1940s and 1950s Nimrod became an Israeli icon central in shaping the figure of the Sabra: the virile, erotic, Levantine, young Jewish-Israeli who became the paragon of native-born local authenticity, an incarnation of the Zionist “New Jew.”
The exhibition “Nimrod’s Descendants” sets out to explore this icon through its new manifestations in Israeli art from the 1950s to the present. Comprising sculptures, paintings, posters, photographs, and video works, the exhibition documents the various “Nimrods” of Israeli art throughout the generations, primarily pitting the physical idealization of Danziger’s `Nimrod` (represented in the exhibition by a later bronze cast of the sculpture), and its early echoes in the 1950s (such as Yehiel Shemi’s monumental sculpture,`Man in the Arava`), against more modern treatments, which respond to the Eros, muscularity, and forcefulness of Danziger’s primitive hunter.
To `Nimrod` and the falcon perched on his shoulder, contemporary Israeli artists respond with another body, either feminine or aging, and with other birds—rooster, parrot, raven, etc; to the Nubian sandstone from Petra they respond with materials and media which are devoid of locality and far-removed from the East. Nimrod’s feminization and/or domestication complete the overall artistic attack on Danziger’s wild, powerful Israeli image. Together, all these contemporary treatments affirm the undermining of the old mythological model of Israeli identity by a generation of new Israelis; in this respect they articulate a more humanistic and less nationalistic approach.