The Jerusalem Post, August 26, 2004. Included several colour reproductions.
Over three decades ago I described Reuven (Berman) Kadim as a painter whose work can be described as intellectual, precise and in search of absolute order.
Not much later, in 1974, his sensual Radiant Tondos were described as being of the highest technical standards. Ten years on, in 1985, I wrote that within the condensed history of Israeli art, Reuven Berman stands apart - and pretty much alone - as a confirmed devotee of concrete art, a concept based on the confluence of balanced geometric shape and color harmony.
Kadim's artistic CV has not changed; his objectives have. On several occasions he has admitted grave doubts about the Zionist dream and the socio-cultural baggage attached to it. Searching for an alternate direction, Kadim immersed himself in the historical canons of the Middle East and ancient Mediterranean cultures: Greek classical proportions, Egyptian temples, Israelite fortresses and, more recently, a near-fanatical interest in Islamic patterns.
Although Kadim has transformed his geometric images from somber two-dimensional polygons to dynamic, computer-generated multi-level analytical studies, his search for ultimate structures that bind form to color has not. It has been only six months since a mid-term review of his work was shown at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, but his current retrospective, "Patterns: An East West Symbiosis", covering the last 20 years, is refreshingly original and startling in its visual impact.
After 14 years, Marc Scheps, the former director of the Tel Aviv Museum, is back as Kadim's guest curator. Together they have cleverly arranged the exhibition in uncluttered thematic sections, including a neighboring gallery of constructivist and neo-plastic works by artists who, in some form or another, relate to Kadim's oeuvre or who have influenced him directly. These include the color theorist Johannes Itten, Piet Mondrian, Josef Albers, Max Bill and Kenneth Noland.
The focus of the exhibition is on several intricate, rhythmically progressive Lamda prints, whose compositions are derived from the pentagon, a shape intrinsic to Islamic patterns. Of major importance is Islamic Fractals 11, a nine by four meter mural displayed in a series of rectangular columns that sparkles with holonic models in which pentagonal hubs and linear joints, having grown into complex formations, confront each other on five different layers of vivid yolk yellow, calamine orange, ultramarine, black and white.
Other splendid panels based on pentagons that evolve unhampered from embryo to maturity include Vertical Transformation 2, a dramatic architectonic blueprint in black and white underscored by a pale turquoise line and Golden Arch Window Quintych, a laser Lambda print that shimmers with an elaborate display of interwoven planes in continuous tones of velvety grays and electric blues.
At the center of the hall, set on a raised platform to celebrate its regal intent, is The Open Receptacle, a lid-less sarcophagus made of wood, brass and acrylic paint. Meticulously decorated with striking multihued patterns and designs, the box is based on the Golden Section and its related Fibonacci Progression and the Root Five Scale, proportions that are at
the core of harmonic measures in nature and art.
Created 12 years ago, this work embodies the entire spectrum of Kadim's aesthetic considerations, his fascination with the art of ancient cultures and his commitment to a contemporary manifesto. Considered a pivotal work in his march towards achieving a transcendental art form, the box is, to quote Kadim, "conceived in Islamic thought: a visual metaphor for the underlying polyphonic complexity, order and eternity of nature."
Together with sculptural images that bridge the Zionist ethos and art (like Melnikov's Monument to the Heroes of Tel Hai and Danziger's Nimrod), Open Receptacle should be included among the extraordinary icons in the cultural history of Israel and should be installed in a permanent public space.
A dozen shaped and painted plywood reliefs, forming the genesis of Kadim's dialog between European modernism and Eastern (Islamic) iconography, project graphic plans and elevations of ancient temples and fortresses from Egyptian and Israelite cultures. Created between 1985 and 1990 in a minimalist contemporary language, these marvelous painted constructions, from the magnificent pantheistic shrine entitled Nile Model 2 to the more modest Growth and Trans, Kadim has virtually packaged an artistic concept that not only relates to, but helps clarify, the chronological continuity and pictographic interaction of cultures in our region. The same applies to Palladio Meets Van Doesburg, a striking amalgamation of 16th-century Italian architecture and 20th-century neo-plastic painting.
Kadim's intriguing powers of suggestion are even more evident in Window Icon, a golden-section panel in rose-petal pink that houses a topographic description of Arad's ancient city walls, crowned by a pair of turquoise diadems and a black Egyptian keystone scrounged from a Sinai temple. What might appear to be eclectic recklessness is actually the careful union of divergent parts that shape an outstanding post-modernist object that simultaneously projects historical data and visual harmony.
Kadim's exhibition is not only intelligently arranged and aesthetically pleasing: it offers the public another opportunity to grasp the importance of his Apollonian approach. Conceived in systematic order, precise geometry and harmonic proportions, it houses a unique spirit divorced from the sturm und drang that has propelled and continues to drive the core of Israeli art. Critics who find it difficult to applaud the Kadim manifesto as being too decorative and lacking a blood and guts signature style, should understand that it is not just a dedication to classical beauty but a socio-cultural-political memorandum. In our current state of affairs, what more could one want from a work of art
Kadim and his constant self-imposed challenge to increase the profundity of his art, has become one of Israel's pre-eminent painters and an artist of the highest integrity. (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, King Saul Blvd.) Till October 9.