Happenings | Igael Tumarkin

About the Work and the Creator / Yehudit On-Sterkhaus

The sculpture Happenings is a large-scale composition made up of basic geometric forms. These partial or full forms - triangles, circles, rectangles and cylinders - are concave or convex, graduated and sloping. They are mainly composed of white cement and black or red steel, and are interwoven into a dynamic monumental assemblage. The compositional center is occupied by an element resembling a tower, with steel arms hanging down from its top.

This tower is surrounded by a horizontal assemblage of forms: to its south is a cube with a concave façade; beyond it appears a round sphere and a massive, angular concrete wing, which seems to be hovering in space. To the west of the sculpture is a sloping concrete cube; to its north is a concave form resembling a bridge, which functions as a support for the pointed tip of the horizontal concrete wing, and an undulating form that extends across the lawn. This arrangement, which creates a sense of balance between the sculpture's vertical and horizontal elements, seems to be gradually rising upwards.

The sculpture's individual forms are all clearly defined, yet inseparable from the composition as a whole. The arms at the top of the tower seem to be bursting upwards out of a circle, to which they are connected at a single point; the circle itself is connected at only one point to a projection extending out of the vertical concrete column. The other parts of the sculpture are similarly joined together at a series of fragile contact points. Simultaneously touching and separate, they appear to be supporting one another. These loose contact points, together with the concave and convex forms that detract from the fullness of the sculptural mass, transform the composition into a series of contrasts between massive, heavy forms and light, hovering, dynamic forms.

Contrasts in Form and Movement

According to Ran Shechori, the sculpture's power is based on "The ensemble of movements, directions and textures it involves: it is at once circular and angular, concave and convex, suspended and sinking, heavy and hovering, fragmented and whole, concrete and metal, white and colorful, and so on."This series of contrasts creates a "happening" of the kind alluded to in the sculpture's title; it serves as the basis for the expressive movement and constant transformation of sculptural masses, which is a result of the spaces between them.

These hidden and exposed passageways invite the viewer to move around the sculpture and sit inside it, or in the shade of the protruding elements. Shechori also notes the interaction between light and shade, which preoccupied Tumarkin during the period in which he created this sculpture: "The entire sculpture is like a solar collector, and changing lighting conditions create new interplays of light and shade on its different planes. The sunlight activates a range of dramatic events, which are emphasized by the sculpture's bright white color. Horizontal arms that jut out sideways engage with it playfully like a sundial. It is thus an 'outdoor sculpture' in the full sense of the word, with 'outdoor' being one of the dominant elements."

The surrounding campus environment - a series of horizontal, exposed concrete buildings - similarly interacts with the sculpture through its open spaces. Within this environment, Tumarkin has "planted a patch of color, which contrasts with its environment in terms of its palette and moderate vertical thrust; at the same time, it echoes the uniform architectural environment by borrowing its dominant plastic elements. It transforms these elements into a fantasy of unruly blocks growing one out of the other, and culminating with the colorful element that hovers over them."

This combination of static geometric bodies and free-flowing, erupting baroque forms is typical of Tumarkin's monumental works from the 1960s and 1970s; these include the Arad Panorama (1962-68), the sculpture The Age of Science in Dimona (1962-1969) and other works. Yona Fischer detects in these sculptures a conflict between different states, and especially between interior and exterior. This tension, he argues, is "not simply a formal tension or assemblage of organic relations, but rather an expression of […] facts that are essential to sculpture. I am referring to the meaning of volume in an environmental context and to the relationship between the sculpture and its environment, which is akin to that between an apartment and its residents.

A Visual and Cultural Symbol

Tumarkin expanded upon these elements to the point of establishing them as the sculptural context." This dynamic between a surprise-filled interior and a streamlined external form is identified by Fischer as what completes "Tumarkin's expressive formal alphabet: this is an alphabet of impossible relations, which are made possible thanks to the affinities they awaken in us." Yigal Zalmona, who similarly underscores the tension between contrasting elements in Tumarkin's work, further defines it as "an angry conflict between differences, a violent encounter between material, formal and conceptual contrasts […] a delicate and terrible balance, the resolution of tension between contrasting elements."

Happenings, according to Tumarkin himself, is "a manifesto of form and color, of volumes in space and of other pure plastic values," an expression of plastic art's ability "to define itself in the landscape, in light; to act as a visual and cultural symbol for a given period and society; and to serve as a universal and historical asset."