Dror Auslander | Hagai Argov  |  Dan Birenboim | Tzvi Ben Aretz | Dror Ben-Ami | Chanchal Banga | Arie berkowitz | Yonatan Geron | Ilan Dotan | Amnon Yuhas | Tamir Lichtenberg | Ori Nir | Studio Sfog | Shy Abady | Dan Reisner | Ohad Shaaltiel | Eldad Shaaltiel | Mnoukhine | Dede

A functional object that eases the heat, status symbol, decoration, dance, seduction, and veiling prop, religious rite piece, means for exhibiting a colorful or wealthy profile, literal expression implying awakening, incentive and relaxation, artistic virtuous platform, extravagant and fragile, primitive mechanism – this is the fan.
The fan, used as a status symbol and a functional object, is frequently associated with the women holding it. In the Fans group exhibition, which concludes 2013 at Zadik Gallery, 20 male artists were asked to present their affinity to the female fetish.
Enchanted by its shape, Dan Birenboim immortalizes the fan – once in a precise drawing on paper, and once as a metaphor for the Mediterranean glare – using oil on canvas. Dror Ben Ami converses with the sacred Aztec feather, etching an enormous, magnificent paper fan of peacock wings.
Influenced by the impressionists, who used the fan as a platform for epic paintings, Ilan Dotan paints mundane events from the Tel Aviv central bus station on a fan created from papier-mâché, water colors, and collage on wooden frame. Similarly, Yonatan Geron gathers narrative elements into a fan in a sophisticated position that conveys the horizon.

Ori Nir deprives the fan of its softness, and sculptures it as an omnipotent iron skeleton. In contrast, Arie Berkowitz uses its shape to defiantly raise the finger at the world.
Chanchal Banga is the only artist in the exhibition to reference the multicultural and historical theme of the “lady with a fan” paintings. Banga is inspired by Indian folk stories and the Indian artist Laxma Goud. He paints the village heroine with her pet beast, and uses Indian Pankha to hint at the position’s comfort. Conversely, Dror Auslander abstracts the fan into a stain thus allowing the spectator to complete the story.
Hagai Argov and Shy Abady use the fan shape as a platform for the image. Argov paints a self-portrait, whereas Abady pays homage to the forgotten painter Eliyahu Tzvi Marcusa (1817-1902), drawing a detail from the monumental painting “King Saul’s Death on Mount Gilboa”. Choosing to do so, Abady joins the impressionist tradition: Pissarro, Monet and Seurat who painted classical masterpieces on fans.
Tzvi Ben Aretz’s collage is an avant-garde interpretation of the fan shape. Ben Aretz picks entertainment images, glues, paints and gives new meaning to the out-of-context fan.

Idols, heroes, demons and monsters are words which add conceptual layers in Tamir Lichtenberg’s fan, who borrows them from the first page of a worn-out book. So do the words, nifnuf (fanning), munaf (lifting), heinef (flutter) – the inspiration for Dan Reisner’s series of fan sculptures.
The sleeping porcupine and the alert porcupine’s fans of thorns are symbols in Dede’s works. Dede appropriates moods, and political and moral statements from the fauna world.

Ohad Shaaltiel fires a fan of fireworks into the sky, while Amnon Yuhas paints a fan of furrows in a plowed field. They both use the image to symbolize a road, a path, and a horizon, whereas Gidi Gilam and Yotam Shifroni from Sfog Studio make poet Yona Volach a light fan halo.
Eldad Shaaltiel casts iron on glass as if to burden the fan’s motion, while Mnoukhine irons it flat, leaving the wind on the cloth.
They all blow cold air, or at least chase the mosquitos away during the July-August summer.

Curator: Hana Coman
Closing: 01.08.13