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"Ben-David's sculptural language, which becomes defined in Evolution and Theory - the title already insinuates a Darwinian seriousness and post-modernist irony is a demonstration of the poetic beauty which exists between -
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delusion and scientific facts, of the problematic distance between the illusion and the object in art and sculpture. Both science and art tend to present (in the laboratory, in the museum) objects as indisputable "facts" (in addition to the illustrations in the science books and the encyclopedias of the l9th century); but, after some time, when the initial and hypnotic magic of understanding and seeing dissipates, we do begin to have doubts regarding the status of these facts - the scientific exhibit or the surface of the drawing or photograph as "truth."
Mier Agassi - Scenes from Apocalypse and Comedy, Evolution and Theory
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In his installation entitled "Evolution and Theory," Yemen-born, Israeli artist Zadok Ben-David fashions witty and playful visual puns to construct a provocative commentary on both the romance and realities of scientific discovery.
The installation consists of 165 hand-cut pieces of aluminium plates appropriating scientific illustrations dating from the 1800s, such as visual accounts of laboratory experiments with electricity, velocity, and gravity, interspersed with life-size figures of apes and early ancestors of Homo Sapiens.
The plates, painted black, are scattered evenly and positioned upright on a smooth bed of fine sand trowelled so meticulously it appears to be a flat, solid surface.
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To preserve the smoothness, viewers are forbidden to enter the gallery space itself, and are thus prevented from walking amidst the plates, which crowd the room as if guests at a cocktail reception.
Ben-David thus physically conveys that things "scientific," as represented by the plates, are seen by the public as rarefied and removed rather than as accessible.
The fact that the artist depicts scientific imagery as flat and colorless, as if merely shadows, infers a viewpoint that scientific discovery is just an illusion, without solid substance.
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Reena Jana from 'Zadok Ben-David - San Francisco Art Institute' |
| Note: The above article 'Zadok Ben-David - San Fransisco Art Insitute' is continued on the next page. Click next to continue.
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