Nissim Tal
Oil paintings of passersby, dancers and actors — anonymous figures caught in ordinary, transient moments.
Oil paintings of passersby, dancers and actors — anonymous figures caught in ordinary, transient moments.
Born in Jerusalem, Nissim Tal holds a degree in Economics and International Relations from the Hebrew University. He also earned a Master's degree in Education from Columbia University in New York. Tal studied art at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem between 1979–1983 (non-degree program). Additionally, he held various positions in the Budget Department of the Ministry of Finance in Jerusalem.
Throughout his career, Tal has been involved in art and the management of cultural and art institutions. For 25 years, he served as the director of the Haifa Museums.
In the past five years, Tal has worked as a strategic consultant specializing in the establishment and management of museums, while also continuing to create and exhibit his own art.
Email: nissimtal@gmail.com
This section of the exhibition presents a casual audience that has come to watch a dance or theater event, whether in an enclosed hall or an open public space.
The works focus on interaction: both between the individuals in the audience themselves, and the special connection created between them and the actors. Since these are fringe or street performances, the interaction is deep and essential
In the paintings and photographs, the figures are shown in close-up in an attempt to capture the fleeting moment, the movement, and the unique postures and gestures of the dancers and actors. The observing audience participates in an interaction with the artists. In contrast to the constantly changing, dynamic performance.
The works center on the perception of the social essence of the street, anonymous passersby, and random occurrences.
The paintings present passersby, who, according to Jean-Paul Sartre, can be regarded as duplications of sorts of the individual, allowing each to exist as a separate entity and all of them as a group. The individuals are presented randomly and monotonously; they lack uniqueness and seem similar, which renders the ordinary everyday into something compelling and attractive.
The painting captures an ordinary transient moment; its figures are regular. For example, an incidental group of people gathering at a given moment in a train station only to be replaced with another anonymous group without much difference.
Maurice Blanchot defines the everyday "as a movement through which the individual exists, human anonymity, with a touch of personal reality, almost faceless. The everyday is not found in our places of residence, in museums, libraries, but in the street. The everyday is in the sense that you pass by it unknowingly, where nothing happens and can surprise us."
According to Sartre, "people differ in age and status, often do not talk to each other, they simply exist side by side in a multitude of solitudes. Loneliness from the group is by choice."
