The meagerness of substance doesn’t indicate its content
Among the artists are Rafi lavi, Nahum Tevet, Michael Drooks, Yehudait Levin, Yair Garbuz, Tamar Geter, Henri Shlizniak, Michal Neeman and others.
The meagerness of substance doesn’t indicate its content
From the 60’s to the 80’s of the 20th century, sounds of criticism were voiced in light of ascetic artistic style called Meagerness of Substance. Among the main artists who chose this path were Rafi lavi, Nahum Tevet, Michael Drooks, Yehudait Levin, Yair Garbuz, Tamar Geter, Henri Shlizniak, Michal Neeman and others.
The meagerness of substance style preferred to put the principles of its actions on paintings fabrics rather than use the three dimensional sculpture. This style developed from a retrospective view on the historic timeline of the art in Israel. The art materials were simple and meager; however the ideal unfolded a strong critical and Ars Poetic tendency of the artists on the Israeli society regarding social and political issues.
The meagerness of substance style began to grow in the fields of Israeli art when the New Horizons Group developed the abstract painting to a formative abstraction of what was visible and happening at the time through the eyes of the group members. Reality was painted in an abstract lyrical style with expressionist influences among the New Horizons artists and artists such as Arie Aruch and Aviva Uri picked up the gauntlet and took the journey of the color and material to the most ascetic place of the meagerness of substance style. Their creations were a model for abstraction and slightly hidden iconography (the study of the meaning of visual means in art pieces).
The raw materials that served the creations of this style were taken from the world of Israeli society, for example, plywood and cardboard. The colors were industrial colors that were incorporated in collages, child-like dribbles and writing. All the elements intentionally created a simple and meager look.
Moreover, the first artists in the group took part in experimental activities of Avant-Gard art together with the Ten Plus Group which chose to work without any unified aesthetic line and used photo as art materials in their pieces.
This style began its way in the exhibition “Meagerness of Substance as Quality in Israeli Art” (1986) in which the curator, Sara Brightberg-semel chose to shed light on the line separating between international arts of that time an local art, through an aesthetic sociologic prospectus of Israeli artists and the way in which they address the European traditional art.
The pieces of the artist Rafi Lavie were a significant example for his style and depicted Tel Aviv as a Zionist European Modern experience that is not well kept but abandoned. In his works he showed collages of culture events and pictures from magazine incorporated with childish dibbles, stickers, plywood with white paint on it. Those became the landmark of the Meagerness of Substance style.