Micha Ullman, Sands of time
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Sands of time - Micha Ullman At The Israel Museum” - Graham Lawson, photo: PR
Speaking to members of the press at the opening of his retrospective exhibition “Sands Of time” at the Israel Museum last week, Micha Ullman said that he “sees the exhibit as one big installation”. Spanning a large part of the history of modern Israeli art, the exhibit incorporates a range of drawings, sculptures, installations and video recordings of his work in other countries.Ullman has been a big and influential name in Israeli art for a long time; he represented Israel in the Venice Biennale in 1980, and, many felt justly, was awarded the Israel Prize in 2009 - the highest award given to an Israeli artist.Ullman was born in 1939 in Tel Aviv and studied at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem and the Central School of Art in London. Despite having German roots (his parents immigrated from Germany to Palestine in 1933) Ullman’s art has been firmly rooted in Israel’s rich, historical land narrative.
Ullman’s chosen work materials are sand, iron and occasionally, glass. Through these raw materials he has explored themes such as place and home, and our relationships to them, in what the artist called an ongoing ‘dialogue with the environment’. Known for his works buried deep in the ground, his rust-red iron pieces emerge from their subterranean vaults at slanted angles. Ullman spoke of the ‘tension of opposites’ in his work, represented literally by the soft, red-hued, yielding sand from his home in Ramat Hasharon as opposed to the harsh metal forms that often dominate his sculptures.
Because of the site-specific nature of some of Micha Ullman’s best-known works, the most famous being his Bibliotek memorial in Berlin, it has been possible to show only certain aspects of the artist’s work at this exhibit. Nevertheless, the essence of Ullman’s work is revealed; in Under (2011), the installation is given a room unto itself, we see an array of metal objects protruding from the floor creating abstract and geometrical patterns. Map, first displayed in 2002, again fuses hard-wrought iron with the rust-red sand that permeates the artist’s work. In form, this piece has an almost Bauhaus-like austerity – we can sit on the chair, but there is no comfort, no back-support and yet we are aware of the everyday nature of these objects.
Ullman’s art is difficult, in part because of his abstract and philosophical approach, but also because aesthetically, his work is so formal. There are lines, squares, rectangles and diagonals, but the only times we see circles or curves are in the imprints and shapes that are created in the rust coloured sand that is so much a part of his work, and it seems, his life. His art asks the viewer questions about our ties to the land, to our home, and at times reveals the harsh ruggedness of our historical and political landscape.
Library, Bebelplatz, Berlin, 1995 II
Sands of Time: The Work of Micha Ullman
June 21, 2011-November 12, 2011
Israel museum, Nathan Cummings 20th Century Art Building, Jerusalem
Sun, Mon, Wed, Thurs 10 am – 5 pm
Tues 4 pm – 9 pm
Fri and holiday eves 10 am – 2 pm
Sat and holidays 10 am – 5 pm
Tues 4 pm – 9 pm
Fri and holiday eves 10 am – 2 pm
Sat and holidays 10 am – 5 pm
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