Amnon David Ar is a Berlin-based artist from Israel. He studied at the Arts and Crafts Municipal High School of Tel Aviv until the age of eighteen. After completing his compulsory military service, he studied anatomy with Oswald Adler. He then spent one year at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. His method of work is independent of temporary technological advances. He choose to paint purely from real life, orchestrating the scenes and objects in his studio, as he feel that only this way he can depict reality in the most direct and honest way, without being restricted by the strains of any technological intermediate interpretation. Ar paints and draws his surroundings – both the people and everyday objects he finds around him in Tel Aviv. He does this, with a realist technique, often preferring to paint objects which are worn, rather than pristine. Robert Fishko, director of the Forum Gallery New York City says: “Ar loves the rich variety of forms in visual reality. Instead of hiding or improving its imperfections, he focuses on them with enthusiasm
1/1 Exhibition : F0r Real
In the exhibition “For Real”, Amnon David Ar addreses to the contemporary human experience, the various emotional and intellectual aspects to which it is unique to our time. We live in an era of chaos and confusion – on one hand the accessibility to knowledge is immense, while on the other, it is becoming harder and harder distinguishing between facts and the fake news we are bombarded with. Technology and communication progress so rapidly, ultimately resulting in less actual intimate communication. We seem to be surrounded by more and more artificiality and screen time, and less actual experiences and personal encounters…
Amnon David Ar’s works gathered for this exhibition deal with the emotional and psychological void we face as a result. The works are divided into four main groups: the large series of paintings forming The Cycle of Life, toys and objects of mass production and propaganda, still lives, and depictions of people – all corresponding with the subject. The Cycle of Life is an ongoing series of large scale oil works each representing Amnon David Ar’s interpretation to the different major stages of life as currently experienced, to be exhibited all together for the first time in Berlin. The exhibition is in conjunction with the publication of his new book in collaboration with Martin Kiefer, former curator of contemporary art at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Each work asks questions such as: “What does it mean being young?”, “What is unique in being middle aged or old today?”, “What are the current roles of Gender in our society?”…Works examining the objects that surround us, trying to shed light on the position of the individual in today’s world, and on the relation between us humans and our planet, our environment, and the things that we produce.
“In Toys I choose to focus on mass produced cheap objects out of daily life, which I find to exemplify the false promise of a brighter and tempting future. In a capitalist mass production and “soulless” world, the works explore the unique and the beautiful in banality and ugliness forming thus a mirror like image of Pop Art. “
