Free choice is granted

Igael Tumarkin
Free Choice is Granted

Naturally, yet not obviously.

The death of Igael Tumarkin evoked many memories from the time we used to work together. We parted ways about twenty years ago, since the death of my father Shmuel Givon. I guess there were many reasons for that. Among them, the fact we were too close.

Tumarkin has released a thread in the sphere of art in Israel, he sent it to a war of liberation, and this discourse should not concentrate on historiographical themes, nor about technical aspects. It is not an argument regarding what came first or after, because Tumarkin’s work overshines principles and words.

While putting the ego aside, as well as the personal vulnerability, the conclusion is that Tumarkin was the very act itself, the actual work of art. Complex, layered, multidisciplinary, and multicultural.

I curated two exhibitions by Tumarkin at the Noemi Givon Gallery for Contemporary Art. More precisely, I received them from him “Carte Blanche”. The first was ‘Who am I and what am I. Jewish, Israeli, German’, together with the launch of the book ‘The Land of Olives and the Vine’, published by Masada LTD. The second one was ‘A Land with No Water’, a site-specific installation (a term that was not popular at the time), an “arrangement”, according to Tumarkin, which  serves as the invitation image for this current exhibition.

The motivation for this exhibition is not to explain, clarify or interpret his work. It should hit the arteries, the arteries of thought and emotion, as was any exhibition by Igael Tumarkin.
It is a late testament of a work happening in real-time.

When the Noemi Givon Gallery for Contemporary Art closed its doors in 1986 and reunited with Givon Gallery, the continuation of the joint work was made when Shmuel Givon conducted the ‘moves’ with Tumarkin, and throughout the 1990s.

The memories that have arisen since his death obstruct me from writing a “proper” critical exhibition text. Having said that, we do have the time to continue to observe and intake Igael Tumarkin; his art, his words, and his extensive body of work.