Dani Karavan
Encyclopedia
Dani Karavan is an Israel
i sculptor best known for site specific memorial
s and monument
s which merge into the environment, though he has made important installations
as well as other significant contributions to art and architecture.
Dani Karavan's father Abraham was the chief landscape architect of Tel Aviv from the nineteen forties to the nineteen sixties and so shared his aptitude for environmental design. At the age of 14 Dani Karavan began studying painting and later in 1943 studied with Marcel Janco
in Tel Aviv and from 1943 to 1949 at the Bezalal School of Arts in Jerusalem. After spending the time between 1948 and 1955 as a kibbutz
member he returned to studying art. From 1956 to 1957 he studied fresco technique at the Academia delle Belle Arti in Florence and drawing at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière
in Paris.
Karavan made permanent installations in the form of wall reliefs in Israeli courts and research institutions. Examples of his artwork for courts are the 1966 Jerusalem City of Peace wall relief in the Knesset
assembly hall and the environmental sculptures comprising 35 wall reliefs & iron sculpture made between 1962 and 1967 at the Court of Justice in Tel Aviv. For the Weizmann Institute of Science
he made the From the Tree of Knowledge to the Tree of Life wall relief in 1964 and the Memorial to the Holocaust in 1972.
For performance groups he designed stage sets throughout the nineteen sixties and seventies. These included the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Batsheva Dance Company
, and the Israel Chamber Orchestra amongst others.
After representing Israel with his Jerusalem City of Peace sculpture at the 1976 Venice Biennale
, he obtained more international commissions - including sculptures in France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Switzerland. One such project was a memorial entitled Passages for Walter Benjamin
constructed between 1990 and 1994 in Portbou
at the Spanish-French border in Spain where the German-Jewish author died in September 1940.
Though their construction ended in the 50s, Dani Karavan's advocacy of Tel Aviv's modern international style
buildings encouraged their restoration and the inscription of The White City
as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Along with an exhibition about the city's architecture at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art
in the mid-1980s, Dani Karavan convinced mayor Shlomo Lahat
to form a jury of international architecture and art critics to review these buildings. The value they placed on the city's town planning and design led to conservation in the 90s and acceptance by UNESCO in 2003.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i sculptor best known for site specific memorial
Memorial
A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person or an event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures, statues or fountains, and even entire parks....
s and monument
Monument
A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...
s which merge into the environment, though he has made important installations
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
as well as other significant contributions to art and architecture.
Biography
Marcel Janco
Marcel Janco was a Romanian and Israeli visual artist, architect, art theorist and cultural promoter, known as the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leading exponent of Constructivism in Eastern Europe. His first contribution came in the 1910s, when he joined up with poets Tristan Tzara and Ion Vinea...
in Tel Aviv and from 1943 to 1949 at the Bezalal School of Arts in Jerusalem. After spending the time between 1948 and 1955 as a kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
member he returned to studying art. From 1956 to 1957 he studied fresco technique at the Academia delle Belle Arti in Florence and drawing at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière
Académie de la Grande Chaumière
The Académie de la Grande Chaumière is an art school in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, France. The school was founded in 1902 by the Swiss Martha Stettler , who refused to teach the strict academic rules of painting of the École des Beaux-Arts. It opened the way to the "Art Indépendant"...
in Paris.
Karavan made permanent installations in the form of wall reliefs in Israeli courts and research institutions. Examples of his artwork for courts are the 1966 Jerusalem City of Peace wall relief in the Knesset
Knesset
The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...
assembly hall and the environmental sculptures comprising 35 wall reliefs & iron sculpture made between 1962 and 1967 at the Court of Justice in Tel Aviv. For the Weizmann Institute of Science
Weizmann Institute of Science
The Weizmann Institute of Science , known as Machon Weizmann, is a university and research institute in Rehovot, Israel. It differs from other Israeli universities in that it offers only graduate and post-graduate studies in the sciences....
he made the From the Tree of Knowledge to the Tree of Life wall relief in 1964 and the Memorial to the Holocaust in 1972.
For performance groups he designed stage sets throughout the nineteen sixties and seventies. These included the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Batsheva Dance Company
Batsheva Dance Company
The Batsheva Dance Company is an internationally acclaimed dance company based in Tel Aviv, Israel. It was founded by Martha Graham and Baroness Batsheva De Rothschild in 1964....
, and the Israel Chamber Orchestra amongst others.
After representing Israel with his Jerusalem City of Peace sculpture at the 1976 Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
, he obtained more international commissions - including sculptures in France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Switzerland. One such project was a memorial entitled Passages for Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
constructed between 1990 and 1994 in Portbou
Portbou
Portbou is a town in the Alt Empordà county, in Girona province, Catalonia, Spain. It has a population of 1,307 people.- Overview :It is located near the French border in the Costa Brava region, and frequently serves as a dropping off point for SNCF trains coming from Cerbère in France.Portbou...
at the Spanish-French border in Spain where the German-Jewish author died in September 1940.
Though their construction ended in the 50s, Dani Karavan's advocacy of Tel Aviv's modern international style
International style (architecture)
The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...
buildings encouraged their restoration and the inscription of The White City
White City, Tel Aviv
The White City refers to a collection of over 4,000 Bauhaus or International style buildings built in Tel Aviv from the 1930s by German Jewish architects who immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine after the rise of the Nazis. Tel Aviv has the largest number of buildings in this style of...
as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Along with an exhibition about the city's architecture at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
The Tel Aviv Museum of Art is an art museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. It was established in 1932 in a building that was the home of Tel Aviv's first mayor, Meir Dizengoff. The Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art opened in 1959. The museum moved to its current location on King Saul Avenue in...
in the mid-1980s, Dani Karavan convinced mayor Shlomo Lahat
Shlomo Lahat
Maj. Gen. Shlomo "Chich" Lahat is a former Israeli general and politician.Lahat was born in Germany and made Aliyah in 1933. He served in the Haganah and the Israel Defense Forces...
to form a jury of international architecture and art critics to review these buildings. The value they placed on the city's town planning and design led to conservation in the 90s and acceptance by UNESCO in 2003.
Awards
- In 1977, Karavan was awarded the Israel PrizeIsrael PrizeThe Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
, for sculpture. - In 1998, he was one of five recipients of the JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese annual Praemium ImperialePraemium ImperialeThe Praemium Imperiale is an arts prize awarded since 1989 by the imperial family of Japan on behalf of the Japan Art Association in the fields painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and theatre/film...
art prize.
List of projects
- NegevNegevThe Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The Arabs, including the native Bedouin population of the region, refer to the desert as al-Naqab. The origin of the word Neghebh is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'...
memorial monument (1963-68, Beersheva) - Kikar Levana (HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
for The White Plaza; 1977-1988, Tel Aviv, Israel) - Tower of Tears (memorial installation at Yad La-ShiryonYad La-ShiryonYad La-Shiryon is Israel's official memorial site for fallen soldiers from the armored corps, as well as one of the most diverse tank museums in the world. The cornerstone for Yad La-Shiryon was laid on...
, LatrunLatrunLatrun is a strategic hilltop in the Ayalon Valley in Israel overlooking the road to Jerusalem. It is located 25 kilometers west of Jerusalem and 14 kilometers southeast of Ramla.-Etymology:...
, Israel) - Axis of the Metropolis (1980-, Cergy-PontoiseCergy-PontoiseCergy-Pontoise is a new town in France, in the Val d'Oise département, northwest of Paris on the Oise River. It owes its name to two of the communes that it covers, Cergy and Pontoise....
, FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
) - Tzaphon (iron sculpture in the form of a disc for the entrance square of the Landtag of North Rhine-WestphaliaLandtag of North Rhine-WestphaliaThe Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia is the state diet of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It convenes in Düsseldorf and currently consists of 181 members of five Parties...
, DüsseldorfDüsseldorfDüsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, 1990) - The Way of Human RightsWay of Human RightsThe Way of Human Rights is a monumental outdoor sculpture in Nuremberg, Germany. It was opened on 24 October 1993. It is sited on the street between the new and old buildings of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, connecting Kornmarkt street and the medieval city wall.In 1988, a twelve-person jury...
(1989-93, Germanisches NationalmuseumGermanisches NationalmuseumThe Germanisches Nationalmuseum is a museum in Nuremberg, Germany. Founded in 1852, houses a large collection of items relating to German culture and art extending from prehistoric times through to the present day...
, NurembergNurembergNuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
) - Passage, a Homage to Walter BenjaminWalter BenjaminWalter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
(1990-94, PortbouPortbouPortbou is a town in the Alt Empordà county, in Girona province, Catalonia, Spain. It has a population of 1,307 people.- Overview :It is located near the French border in the Costa Brava region, and frequently serves as a dropping off point for SNCF trains coming from Cerbère in France.Portbou...
, CataloniaCataloniaCatalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
) - The Path of the Hidden Garden (1992-99, Sapporo Art Forest open-air gallery, Japan)
- Ma'ayan (1993-95, Miyazaki PrefectureMiyazaki Prefectureis a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. The capital is the city of Miyazaki.- History :Historically, after the Meiji Restoration, Hyūga Province was renamed Miyazaki Prefecture....
Art Museum, Japan) - Way of Peace (1996-2000, NegevNegevThe Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The Arabs, including the native Bedouin population of the region, refer to the desert as al-Naqab. The origin of the word Neghebh is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'...
Desert near Nitzana, Israel) - Bereshit (Hebrew:Genesis; 2000-, Kirishima Art Forest, Kagoshima PrefectureKagoshima Prefectureis a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. The capital is the city of Kagoshima.- Geography :Kagoshima Prefecture is located at the southwest tip of Kyushu and includes a chain of islands stretching further to the southwest for a few hundred kilometers...
, Japan) - Regensburg SynagogueRegensburg SynagogueThe original Regensburg Synagogue, erected between 1210 and 1227, was an edifice in Old Romanesque style in Regensburg, southern Germany, on the site of the former Jewish hospital, in the center of the ghetto, where the present Neue Pfarre stands...
memorial, 2005
Further reading
- Amnon BarzelAmnon Barzel-Education:Barzel is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he majored in Natural Science. Barzel earned his post-graduate degree at the University La Sorbonne in Paris, France, in Art History.-Career:...
, Luigi Lambertini, Pierre Restany: Dani Karavan: Un Ambiente Per La Pace / Environment for Peace (Biennale di Venezia, 1976, Israel) Firenze: Editrice Il Bisonte 1976 - Ursula Peters: Dani Karavan: Weg der Menschenrechte, in: Ursula Peters: Moderne Zeiten. Die Sammlung zum 20. Jahrhundert, in Zusammenarbeit mit Andrea Legde, Nürnberg 2000 (Kulturgeschichtliche Spaziergänge im Germanischen Nationalmuseum, Bd.3), S.274-281.
- Pierre Restany: Dani Karavan. Prestel, München 1992/1999 ISBN 3791312111
- Udo WeilacherUdo WeilacherUdo Weilacher, Prof. Dr. sc. ETH, is a German landscape architect, author and Professor for Landscape Architecture.-Biography:Udo Weilacher, born in Kaiserslautern/ Germany, was originally educated as a gardener in 1984...
: "Harmonie und Zweifel - Dani Karavan" (Interview), in: Udo Weilacher: Zwischen Landschaftsarchitektur und Land Art. Basel Berlin Boston 1999 ISBN 3764361204 - Udo WeilacherUdo WeilacherUdo Weilacher, Prof. Dr. sc. ETH, is a German landscape architect, author and Professor for Landscape Architecture.-Biography:Udo Weilacher, born in Kaiserslautern/ Germany, was originally educated as a gardener in 1984...
: "Weiße Erinnerung auf grünem Grund. Garten der Erinnerung in Duisburg von Dani Karavan", in: Udo Weilacher: In Gärten. Profile aktueller europäischer Landschaftsarchitektur. Basel Berlin Boston 2005 ISBN 376437084X