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In fairy tales, animals often behave like humans: they take on human characteristics. Animals, plants other objects are metaphors in Ben-David's sculptures and represent human equivalents, as they do for de Chirico.
In his essay "The Metaphysical Art of Giorgio de Chirico seen against the background of German Philosophy", Wieland Schmied investigated the influence of Otto Weiningers on the ideas of de Chirico, and writes "...the things of the outer world only affect us because they are already in us".
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Weininger continues: "Everything that exists in nature corresponds to a human characteristic, and every possibility in mankind represents something in nature."
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So everything in nature is sensual, and the sensual aspects in nature are given meaning through man's psychological categories and are seen only as a symbol of these". In this sense the shadow becomes a symbol for the soul and the vitality; in the work of Ben-David, this appears from time to time with an ironic sideways glance, as in his work "Black Cats Live In Their Own Shadow", and in the sculpture "Five Yellow Flowers and a Wish".
Lia Lindner
Shadow Sculptures of Zadok Ben David, Munich, Februrary 1990
"A Bright Reincarnation of the Antelope", made in 1984 - It's very typical of the time when I was searching for forms dealt with metaphors for a life-span.
This piece was made from two colours , a bright red and grey. It is quite unusual to start
describing a piece by its colour, but I'm doing this deliberately. I often think of the colour before I think of the form because colour holds special symbolic values for me.
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The antelope is lying on its back and is made of cement in its natural colour. Grey symbolises, for me, death and dying - and the image of animals lying on their backs came from my childhood, when we saw stray dogs and cats lying on their backs when they were dead.
Leaping from one outstretched leg of the animal is a very tiny, bright red, fluorescent kangaroo which represents reincarnation, a new life. It's a sort of journey round the circle of life. For me, it's one of the most optimistic works that I've done: even though it deals with death, it also deals with birth."
Zadok Ben David from an interview with Waldermar Janusczak.
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