Zadok Ben-David in National Museum of Astana
Dates: 26 Sep 2014 – 05 Dec 2014
National Museum of Kazakhstan presents a solo exhibition The Other Side of Midnight of one of the most famous sculptors of our time Zadok Ben-David, England, London. The works of the sculptor will be shown in Central Asia for the first time.
Indira Dyussebaeva is the curator of the exhibition.
The exhibition will be held in the Halls of Contemporary Art at the National Museum of Kazakhstan from September 27 to December 5, 2014. The exhibition consists of 3 installations and one sculpture.
Each installation is an incarnation of the original intent of the artist, his work of imagination, where nature at the behest of the artist surprises and delights, fascinates and mystifies. His works are the illusion of magic, akin to magical reality.
Blackfield installation is a sandy field, "sown with plants" in the amount of 20,000 pieces, cut from stainless steel. Each figure, whether it is a flower or a blade of grass, is painted by hand and represents a copy of the plants from the collections of Victorian encyclopaedias of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One side of the flower is painted black and the other shimmers with all the colours. Life and death are always there, always together. This is the metaphysics of Zadok Ben-David’s life.
It has taken the artist three years of hard work to create Blackfield installations with the participation of 10 assistants.
In the Exhibition there is a Dark room, especially designed for “The Other Side of Midnight” installation. The object placed in this space is a 3 Diameter circle with a diameter of 3 meters and consists more than 2,000 different butterflies and various insects, painted in bright fluorescent colours. Visitors will see the magic circle come to life being exposed to ultraviolet lights.
Blackflowers installation consists of 22 (colors) sculptures, hand-cut aluminium . Blackflowers is a metonymic continuation of Blackfield installation, where the artist has increased the size of certain flowers to a human scale. Deep black colour of figures and their thin and fragile silhouette - all are subject to unified artistic vision. Leaving only black colour Zadok Ben-David thinks about the idea, the silhouette of the flower.
Zadok Ben-David was born in Yemen in 1949. Then, as a child he emigrates to Israel with his parents. He studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem, and then continued his education in England, in Fine art Department in the University of Reading, also at the time graduated from St. Martin's School of Art.
At present the artist lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions of the artist with the same success are held worldwide - from London to South Korea, getting a record number of visitors. In 1988 he represented the State of Israel at the International Venice Biennale. In 2008 he was elected as the official sculptor Summer(together with 20 international sculptors) Olympic Games in Beijing.
Zadok Ben-David is the winner of numerous awards, and among them are:
The 1st prize of the 14th International Biennale in Portugal (2007).
The Museum of Art in Tel Aviv award for his achievements in the field of sculpture (2005).
Sculptures of Zadok Ben-David are placed in Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Over the past few years Ben-David’s works have been shown in Italy, Germany, China, South Korea, United States, Singapore and Ukraine. His works are in public and private collections in Europe, Asia, the USA, Israel and Austria.
Zadok Ben-David has developed his own artistic style that is recognized worldwide.
The curator of the exhibition Indira Dyussebaeva is a graduate of UCL (University College London) the Faculty of History of Art. Co-founder of IADA (International Art Development Association), the art consultant and business development director of Artist Pension Trust.
