'What did you think of the exhibit?” a young artist asked another, at the opening of the Yair Garbuz exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum. “Garbuz is Garbuz,” the artist's acquaintance replied, with a wry, knowing smile. The answer was a kind of put-down, implying that the artist had not created anything the audience has not seen before. Essentially, it is typical Garbuz. Garbuz is, of course, always himself – artist, writer, husband and father. Yet, as any observer of his career knows, he has explored many roles and characters in his work as a painter. In one of his books, he wrote: “I never knew exactly who I am and what is in me; all decisions on the matter which necessitated letting go of alternative identities were rejected.” “I am Painters,” the name given to the exhibition, was curated by Ellen Ginton, the museum's senior curator of Israeli art. The title is a reference to one of the paintings in the exhibition but is better understood as referring to the multitude of artists who have exerted an influence on Garbuz throughout his career. The show is the result of his having been awarded the 2015 Rappaport Prize for an Established Israeli Artist, and displays works from the last five years. In what is a large exhibition – upward of 80 paintings – Garbuz draws on a wide range of sources and cultures. The overall effect created could be considered a kind of postmodern pastiche in which he combines pop aesthetics with influences as diverse as European and American modernism, the Russian avant-garde and folk and medieval art. Garbuz has always considered himself a copyist, in the sense that he imitates other artists. Garish figures and forms akin to Picasso and Matisse are seen in some of the paintings, although there are also references to Edward Hopper, Paul Cézanne and the American graphic artist Saul Steinberg, among others. In the catalogue text Ginton refers to Garbuz's paintings as theatrical and carnivalesque. Garbuz discards traditional rules of perspective, giving the paintings a flat look, but this is offset by the profusion of figures, action and scenery. “Theater, with its act of role-playing and adopting masks, has always been central to what I do,” he said in conversation with Metro. “In a sense I want to be unfaithful to myself, in an attempt to be someone else. If you inhabit a certain role, you consider how does it speak and behave. For me this playing with identity involves a kind of exploration and investigation, because ultimately I cannot be other than myself,” he continued. Garbuz's painting theater is not intent on exploring notions of the self. The paintings do not tend to focus on a central character, nor is there any apparent hierarchy. Rather, the viewer is treated to crowd-filled and cluttered stagings often involving a host of convoluted scenes and characters. Figures, objects and cultures are interwoven and overlap, as if the plywood, the material on which he paints, becomes the reciprocator for a bizarre kind of iconography following its own inner logic. In the painting Arrogance Lies Heavy on the Land, workers attired in concentration- camp uniforms are superimposed on Arab natives and set against a classical Middle Eastern backdrop, likely Egyptian. A slight criticism is implied in the painting's title, borne out by the mocking grins of the Jewish figures. In several other paintings, Garbuz depicts mixed-gender characters, in the process creating grotesque-looking, bastardized figures and scenes, many of which have a strong comic element. “In art and theater the rules are different to those in life. You can do all sorts of hideous things and not have to fear repercussions or consequences. This freedom is the basis of [my] art and can lead to an inquiry into morality and ethics,” he explained. “There are many starting points for a painting. Sometimes I will elaborate on an idea or character from a previous work. There is also the possibility presented by the act of applying the raw material of paint, what we call the 'grounds,' to the canvas. Sometimes I will paint straight onto the board. Or I might apply three layers and wait for the paint to be absorbed. Occasionally, I will use a color other than white for the background. All of these techniques will affect the outcome of the painting,” he continued. Ginton likens Garbuz's work to a “jester's act,” a phrase that can be interpreted to refer to the play and humor that are part of his painting practice. The humor is pointed, mocking and at times anarchic. He does not spare himself, nor does he consider the art world a sacred cow. Painters, sculptors, writers – all are fair game. In Image Courage, a reference to the German writer Bertolt Brecht's play Mother Courage, Brecht's heroine is portrayed as a Muslim woman and placed in a Middle Eastern setting. Branc-Uzi has the figure's head painted askew, in the likeness of one of the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi's famous sculptures. The figure brandishes an Uzi submachine gun. The visual and textual interplay is constant but is most evident in the recurring references to the act of painting itself. Works with titles such as “Painting charmed me to death,” “Only when I have nothing to copy I paint” and “I smear freely in all styles” get to the heart of this exhibition and Garbuz's practice, with its culling and sifting of times, places, cultures, histories and artistic influences. “The exhibition shouldn't summarize everything I've thought but open up a new avenue of thought, maybe a new way of looking or seeing,” he said. It is this sense of movement and searching that is ever present in Garbuz's practice. In an essay titled “I am Painters – I am Quotes,” he wrote: “I feel like stomping my feet and shouting, 'This is exactly what I am trying to paint.' But my legs no longer listen to me; they are already stomping in another story.” If Garbuz's works are to be understood in terms of theater, then, for him, all the world becomes a stage.
Stream of Gratitude, Killer Gift (2015)(photo credit: YAIR GARBUZ)