born 1940 Jerusalem
since 1972 lives and works in London
Education
1967 - Art Institute, Bat-Yam
1967- The High Institute for Painting, Tel Aviv
Michael Druks, painter; sculptor; and conceptual, video, performance and installation artist, was born in Jerusalem (1940), but grew up and went to school in Tel Aviv, and (in the ’60s) became involved in dynamic theater and art circles there. Within a few years he was a success story, his work was shown in leading exhibitions, and he was acclaimed as one of the best young artists in Israel (1969-1970).
At this decisive stage in his life and work Druks traveled abroad, and after several months in Holland he has settled permanently in London since 1972. Despite his distance from the “center” of Israeli art, however, Druks has become etched in the local consciousness as a major Israeli artist, and his works have continued to be shown in almost every constitutive exhibition of Israeli art.
His work, created mainly in London, has been perceived as connecting at its very core with the nerve intersections of this place (the portrait Druksland, for example), and has been included in all the major exhibitions that have contended with challenges such as characterizing Israeli art, mapping its orientations, and identifying milestones in its development.
The list of exhibitions he has taken part in marks out the route along which Israeli art has defined its identity through a period of some thirty years, and from this perspective he is one of the artists who best represent Israeli art with its diverse orientations.
The Israeli public has indeed been exposed to his work in an ongoing manner, but has never had the opportunity to view and to gain a deeper appreciation of the expressive power of the totality of his work, which also includes a rich chapter of painting.
The exhibition and the book “Travels in Druksland” propose a broad and comprehensive retrospective gaze, which includes reconstruction of constitutive installations works and performances, films, video works and painting that have become milestones.
Michael Druks is an Israeli-born artist with a diverse practice ranging from his avant-garde conceptual works of the 1970s involving video, photography and performance, to his installation works, collages, drawings and paintings.
Born in Jerusalem in 1940, he grew up in Tel Aviv where he became involved in theatre and art circles, and by the late 1960s he was acclaimed as a leading young Israeli artist.
Druks moved to Europe around 1970 and soon settled permanently in England, where he became known for his conceptual work, and had significant solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; the Whitechapel Gallery, London; De Appel, Amsterdam; and the ICA, London.
Druks has exhibited internationally in museums and institutions over the past four decades. Michael Druks: Travels in Druksland, a major retrospective, was at the Museum of Art, Ein Harod (2007); and Druksland: An Audio-Visual Retrospective at Haifa Museum (2004). He was recently represented in Atlas Critique at the Parc Saint Leger Centre D'Art Contemporain, Paris (2012); and in Contemporary Cartographies: Drawing Thought, CaixaForum, Barcelona (2012), CaixaForum, Madrid (2013). Druks's conceptual map - the print Druksland: Physical and Social (1974) - has become an iconic image in both Israeli and international art.
Michael Druks has taken part in several group exhibitions at England & Co over the past decade, including The Map is Not the Territory series (2002, 2003, 2009); Beneath the Radar in 1970s London (2010); and Wandering Lines: From Automatic Drawing to Abstraction (2012).
Michael Druks, his recent solo exhibition with the gallery, featured early conceptual works and video together with a group of recent paintings. He was also included in the gallery exhibition Works from the 1970s and '80s in 2013.
Druks has exhibited internationally over the past four decades, including Documenta 6, Kassel (1977); Performance, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1979); exhibitions at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Tel Aviv Museum, Israel; and Cartographers, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb.
Michael Druks: Travelling in Druksland, a major retrospective, was at the Museum of Art, Ein Harod (2007); and Druksland: An Audio-Visual Retrospective at Haifa Museum (2004).
He was recently represented in Atlas Critique at the Parc Saint Leger Centre d’Art Contemporain, Paris (2012); and in Contemporary Cartographies: Drawing Thought, CaixaForum, Barcelona (2012), CaixaForum, Madrid (2013).
Druks grew up in Tel Aviv where he studied at the Art Academy and became involved in avant-garde art and theatre circles. By the late 1960s, Druks was established as a leading young Israeli artist and decided to travel abroad.
He arrived in Europe around 1970, and after a period in Holland, settled in England where he became known for his conceptual work, with solo exhibitions in the 1970s at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; The Whitechapel Gallery, London; De Appel, Amsterdam; and the ICA, London.
His diverse practice over four decades reflects Druks’s thoughts about techniques and media. He sees ‘technique’ as “merely a working tool”: when asked about his use of many different media in 1978, he replied that “the medium is the artist himself, and all the rest, such as video and drawing, are techniques.”
In the mid 1970s, Druks made a major series of works involving varied interventions with TV screen images. Using performance and photography, these interventions had subversive, humorous or politically charged results as is evidenced in Druks’s filmed performance work Playbox (1975) where he reacts and interacts with, programmes being broadcast on television; and in his photographic installation Unauthorized Biography (c1975).
Druks’s conceptual map – the print Druksland: Physical and Social (1974) – has become an iconic image in both Israeli and international art, featured in numerous exhibitions, books, magazines, exhibition catalogues and posters. This work evolved from his “geographical technique” with which he intended to provide a coded visual language of signs understood all over the world; and reflected Druks’s preoccupation in the 1970s, with borders and boundaries and their social and political implications.
Since the early 1980s, Druks has concentrated primarily on painting, making works he says are “details detached from a context” that require time and active participation from the viewer. Described by Arturo Schwarz as ‘mindscapes’, these enigmatic paintings are intended to entice an investment of time and imagination in the process of contemplating and decoding them – Druks sees this time element as incorporating “an extra dimension to a two-dimensional product”, saying that “my elusive images create the space for playfulness and involve the viewer’s participation in an active and democratic role”. He creates fictions, making images that emerge from his subconscious, although “the trigger for the picture is not the subject for the work”.
Michael Druks has taken part in group exhibitions at England & Co, including The Map Is Not the Territory series (2002, 2003, 2009); Beneath the Radar in 1970s London (2010); and Wandering Lines: From Automatic Drawing to Abstraction (2012). This first solo exhibition with the gallery features early conceptual works and video together with a group of recent paintings.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
1966 Students’ House, Tel Aviv University
1970 ‘Environment’ Billy Rose Pavilion, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1971 ‘Sandwiches’ Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv
1973 ‘Flexible Geography’ Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
‘Punishments’ Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv
1974 ‘Punishments’ In-Out Centre, Amsterdam;
Agora Studio, Maestricht and Art Meeting Place, London
‘Hidings, Forgeries’ Photographers Gallery, London
1975 ‘Image/Identity’ International Cultural Centre, Antwerp
‘Two Installations’ PMJ Self Gallery, London
‘Photographs and Video Installations’ De Appel Centre, Amsterdam
1976 ‘Everybody’s Own Yard’ Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
‘Simple Fractions’ Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv
1977 ‘Territory – Living Space’ Neue Galerie Sammlung Ludwig, Aachen
1978 ‘Ambiguous Definitions’ ICA London
‘Incidence & Coincidence’ Spaces for Exhibitions & Actions, Berne
1983 ‘Screenings of Photographic Situations’ The Israel Museum Jerusalem
1987,88,90,99 Julie M Gallery, Tel Aviv
1992 ‘Works on Paper’ The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1993 Bugrashov Gallery, Tel Aviv
1994 Beardsmore Gallery, London
2001 ‘Circumstantial Evidence: New Pictures’ Beardsmore Gallery, London
2004 ‘Druksland: Video Works’ audio visual retrospective Haifa Museum, Haifa
‘Forensic: Paint and Clay’ Beardsmore Gallery, London
2007 ‘Michael Druks: Travels in Druksland’ retrospective, Museum of Art, Ein Harod
‘Michael Druks’ Beardsmore Gallery, London
‘Michael Druks: Early Works 1965-1982’, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv
’Selected Works’, Yair Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
2009 “Deuteronomy Chapter 1, Pictures Chapter 2”, Yair Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
2013 Solo Exhibition, England & Co. Gallery, London
Selected Group Exhibitions
1968 ‘Ten Plus: For and Against’ Gallery 220, Tel Aviv
1969 ‘Autumn Salon’ Helena Rubinstein Pavilion of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Museum
‘Ten Plus in the Round’ Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv
1970 ‘Ten Plus On Venus’ Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv
1971 ‘Concept + Information’ The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1972 ‘Affidavit: Idea-Process-Document’ Gallery House, London
1973 ‘Self Portrait in Israeli Art’ Haifa Museum of Modern Art
1974 ‘Ten Years, Twenty Artists’ The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1975 Travelling Exhibition in South America under aegis of Agora Studio, Maestricht,
Museum of Contemporary Art, Buenos Aires; Museum of Contemporary Art Sao Paulo; Estudio Actual Caracas, Venezuela
‘International Open Encounter on Video’ Palazzo dei Diamante, Ferrara;
Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris
‘Ninth Biennale of Young Artists’ Paris
‘Video Works’ Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels
‘The Video Show’ Serpentine Gallery, London
‘Video Travelling Show’ Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol and Brighton
1976 ‘Photography as Art’ Gallery Grada, Zagreb
‘Time, Words and the Camera: Photo Works by British Artists’ travelling exhibition in Austria: Kunstlerhaus, Graz; Municipal Gallery Innsbruck; Artists Union Vienna.
1977 ‘Documenta 6’ Kassel
‘Photography as Art, Art as Photography’ travelling show under aegis of Fotoforum Kassel,
Kassel, London, Warsaw, New York
1978 ‘Artist and Society in Israeli Art 1948-1978’ Tel Aviv Museum
1979 ‘Interdisciplinary Events on Body Art and Performances’ National Museum of Modern Art, Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris
1980 ‘Borders’ The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
‘Maps and Images of the Earth’ Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris
1981 ‘International Photography Biennale’ Vienna
‘Contemporary Artists’ Camden Arts Centre, London
1982 ‘Aart Hats’ travelling exhibition in Germany
‘The Labyrinth’ Atelier Rue Ste-Anne, Brussels
1983 ‘Tel Hai ’83 Contemporary Art Meeting’ Tel Hai
1984 ‘Eighty Years of Sculpture in Israel’ The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1985 ‘Milestones in Israeli Art’ The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1986 ‘The Want of Matter: A Quality in Israeli Art’ Tel Aviv Museum
1989 ‘To Live with the Dream’ Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1992 ‘Routes of Wandering: Nomadism, Journeys and Transitions in Contemporary Israeli Art’, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
‘Stitching Gordon Matta-Clark: A Selection’ Waranda Culture Centre’ Belgium
1994 ‘90-70-90: Developments in Israeli Photography in the Past Twenty Years’ Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1995 ‘Looking Up, Looking Down’ Beardsmore Gallery, London
1996 ‘Cartographers’ travelling exhibition in Eastern Europe: Museum of Contemporary Art
Zagreb; Mucsarnok Hall of Art Budapest; Center for Contemporary Art Warsaw; Umetnostna
Gallery Maribor Slovenia
1997 ‘Perspectives on Israeli Art of the Seventies: The Eyes of the State’ Tel Aviv Museum of Art
‘In the Light of the Menorah: Transformation of a Symbol’ The Israel Museum Jerusalem
2000 ‘Four Artists’ Beardsmore Gallery, London
2001 ‘Love At First Sight: Israeli Art from the Vera and Arturo Schwarz Collection’ The Israel Museum Jerusalem
‘Narrative and Other Stories’ Haife Museum of Art
2002 ‘The Map is Not the Territory, Part 1’ England & Co, London
2003 ‘Thou Shalt Make: The Resurgence of Judaism in Israeli Art’ Time for Art, Tel Aviv
‘Video Zero 1: Communication Interferences’ Haifa Museum of Art
‘The Map is Not the Territory, Part 2’ Farnham College of Art, London
2004 ‘The Fourth Ceramic Biennale’ Eretz-Israel Museum, Tel Aviv
2006 ‘Video Zero 3: Performing the Body – Live Acts’ Haifa Museum of Art
2007 ‘Mapping the Imagination’ Victoria and Albert Museum, London
2008 ‘+10 Group’, Tel Aviv Art Museum
‘The Birth of “Now”: Art in Israel in the 1960s', Ashdod Art Museum, Monart Center
’My Body, My Self: Art in Israel in the 1970s’, Tel Aviv Museum
‘Click-Clack’ The Art Gallery, University of Haifa
‘The Hidden Trace, Jewish Paths through Modernity’ Felix-Nussbaum-Haus
Osnabruk, Germany
2009 ‘Face Inside and Out’, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv
‘Mind the Cracks!’, collages from the Museum and other collections,
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
‘The Map is Not the Territory, Part 3’, England & Co, London
2010 “Beneath the Radar in 1970s London”, England & Co, London
2012 “Wandering Lines: From Automatic Drawing to Abstraction”, England & Co, London
Additional Information:
A journey through Druksland
By GIL GOLDFINE / The Jerusalem Post / 07/05/2007
Michael Druks has weathered conceptual, video and installation art and come back to painting.