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September 2012
MANAMA
CAPITAL
OF
ARAB
CULTURE
2012
CAPITAL
OF
ARAB
CULTURE
2012
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September
Art Calendar
Dana Harel: Wrestling God
Frey Norris Contemporary & Modern, San Francisco, CA
6 September - 27 October
Frey Norris Contemporary & Modern, San Francisco, CA
6 September - 27 October
FREY NORRIS Contemporary and Modern is pleased to present Wrestling God, a solo exhibition of new works on paper by Israeli-born, Bay Area artist Dana Harel, opening September 6, 2012. These monumental-scale drawings, made with graphite and soil, deal directly with hybridity, and the shimmering boundary between the physical world and supernatural metaphor.
Wrestling God deepens Harel’s exploration of the human capacity for physical, psychological, and spiritual transformation with a set of meticulously rendered, larger-than-life portraits and action scenes of wrestlers and combatants, as well as an experimental video and sound performance to take place at the opening. True to form, her new drawings are all elegant, expertly constructed depictions, technically on par with contemporaries Aurel Schmidt or Colter Jacobsen, and her sensitive renderings capture the gore of a vanquished foe’s organs as well as the ambiguous glow of halos and arena lights. The exhibition as a whole opens up a line of allegorical questioning into the human capacity for transformation, and the struggle change can entail.
These works are inspired by the Biblical tale of Jacob wrestling with an Angel from the Book of Genesis, a brief, enigmatic passage that describes human Jacob’s confrontation with a mysterious, divine figure that lasted all night, and concluded with Jacob’s physical defeat, but also him being blessed with the name of Israel. Harel relates this to the struggle between the enlightened and the debased aspects of all of our lives. Her works therefore show each subject as oppositional extremes united in one physical form, and so good and evil, corporeal and ephemeral, light and dark, are readily apparent in her dramatic chiaroscuro drawings. She shows her subjects both locked in battle, bodies clashing, as well as deep in thought, isolated and physically still.
Harel’s struggle and dedication are evident in her naturalistic renderings and deep spatial passages, her own devotion mirroring the penitent gestures and heroic efforts of her subjects. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote about Jacob and the angel in his poem The Man Watching, linking physical punishment, spiritual ambitions, and human growth thusly:
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
Harels’s new depictions, of boxers, wrestlers, and striking male nudes, glory in the drama of physical struggle. Like her earlier works, these images also contemplate the metaphysics of the total human experience.
Dana Harel was trained as an architect at the California College of Arts and Crafts, her artwork has been seen in such publications as ArtNews, Artweek, Zyzzyva, and Beautiful Decay. She is the 2009 recipient of the Irvine Fellowship at the Montalvo Arts Center Residency Program, among other awards, and her work has been shown at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel, and has been included in exhibitions at the San Jose Contemporary Art Institute, Montalvo Center for the Arts in Saratoga, the Napa Valley Museum, Palo Alto Art Center, and at Southern Exposure in San Francisco. Wrestling God is her second solo exhibition with Frey Norris.
Wrestling God deepens Harel’s exploration of the human capacity for physical, psychological, and spiritual transformation with a set of meticulously rendered, larger-than-life portraits and action scenes of wrestlers and combatants, as well as an experimental video and sound performance to take place at the opening. True to form, her new drawings are all elegant, expertly constructed depictions, technically on par with contemporaries Aurel Schmidt or Colter Jacobsen, and her sensitive renderings capture the gore of a vanquished foe’s organs as well as the ambiguous glow of halos and arena lights. The exhibition as a whole opens up a line of allegorical questioning into the human capacity for transformation, and the struggle change can entail.
These works are inspired by the Biblical tale of Jacob wrestling with an Angel from the Book of Genesis, a brief, enigmatic passage that describes human Jacob’s confrontation with a mysterious, divine figure that lasted all night, and concluded with Jacob’s physical defeat, but also him being blessed with the name of Israel. Harel relates this to the struggle between the enlightened and the debased aspects of all of our lives. Her works therefore show each subject as oppositional extremes united in one physical form, and so good and evil, corporeal and ephemeral, light and dark, are readily apparent in her dramatic chiaroscuro drawings. She shows her subjects both locked in battle, bodies clashing, as well as deep in thought, isolated and physically still.
Harel’s struggle and dedication are evident in her naturalistic renderings and deep spatial passages, her own devotion mirroring the penitent gestures and heroic efforts of her subjects. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote about Jacob and the angel in his poem The Man Watching, linking physical punishment, spiritual ambitions, and human growth thusly:
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
Harels’s new depictions, of boxers, wrestlers, and striking male nudes, glory in the drama of physical struggle. Like her earlier works, these images also contemplate the metaphysics of the total human experience.
Dana Harel was trained as an architect at the California College of Arts and Crafts, her artwork has been seen in such publications as ArtNews, Artweek, Zyzzyva, and Beautiful Decay. She is the 2009 recipient of the Irvine Fellowship at the Montalvo Arts Center Residency Program, among other awards, and her work has been shown at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel, and has been included in exhibitions at the San Jose Contemporary Art Institute, Montalvo Center for the Arts in Saratoga, the Napa Valley Museum, Palo Alto Art Center, and at Southern Exposure in San Francisco. Wrestling God is her second solo exhibition with Frey Norris.
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