Iron Flock & Assets

Past Exhibition

20.3.2024 - 10.05.2024

The Engel Gallery exhibits Iron Flock & Assets as part of the Jerusalem Biennale, an exhibition dealing with the inalienable assets of both Israeli art and the Engel Gallery. The exhibition is divided into two floors: in the gallery’s entrance and ground floor are Menashe Kadishman’s iron sculpture – sheep sculptures will be strewn across the space as a herd, and in the center of the installation the shepherd looking over the herd. On the 2nd gallery floor, artworks from the gallery’s collection by the masters of Israeli art through the ages are exhibited. Rare artworks which constitute the Engel Gallery’s uniqueness in the Jerusalem and Israel scene. Among the artworks exhibited Beat Their Swords by Abel Pann (1940), War of Independence by Avigdor Arikha (1948), Moses From Sarajevo by Arie Aroch (1955) and more.

Seer Shepherd (Ro’eh Ro’eh) / Gavriel Engel

With this festive exhibition the Engel Gallery is celebrating the sixth year of the Biennale in Jerusalem, we present a dual-layered exhibition on the subject of inalienable assets in Israeli art (in Hebrew: iron flock assets).

In the entrance floor of the gallery, sculptures of iron and bronze by Menashe Kadishman are displayed; Kadishman raised the shepherd’s staff and declared “I am the shepherd of Israeli art, and my creations are the Israeli art”. Indeed, Kadishman is the artist who best represents modern Israeli art and can even be considered the new Israeli-Jewish artist. His use of the lamb-ram, from his role as a shepherd and a sculptor, created a field of inquiry that renews the artistic discourse about our place as a people and the culture that guides us. In our past, the shepherd was the leader, whether it was Moses or King David, mythical figures who emerged from an understanding of the herd and its needs, becoming leaders of the people. Thus, also Kadishman, who presented at the Venice Biennale in the Israeli Pavilion in 1978 the first live lamb flock in the history of the Biennale, painted and marked them with sky blue paint, as if saying “I am the shepherd – the seer, this is Israeli art, it comes from the strength of the farseeing shepherd watching his flock.”

However, the lamb-ram is also the story of sacrifice, as depicted in our sources and as represented in sculptures, such as the Binding of Isaac at Tel Aviv University. The powerfully large iron sculpture, with its intricate rusted steel plates that at a certain light resemble blood, has the head of the ram placed above, as Isaac’s head either dead or reborn downward. The legs of the ram are replaced by the spread arms of Isaac, but his gaze is directed upwards to his savior – the ram. In this sculpture, the sacrificed figure is represented as the people of Israel and there is no ram to save them. Yet, the sculpture also symbolizes the purity and innocence of those who go as sheep to the slaughter. Kadishman knew how to navigate between the pleasant and the tragic, and between the soft and the hard. While the colorful paintings of Kadishman’s sheep made him the most identified artist with Israeli art, almost no Israeli cultural figure would not recognize “Kadishman’s sheep.” In contrast, his sculptures made of weathered iron, as well as his monumental sculptures like “Rising” in Habima Square or “Binding” at the entrance of the Tel Aviv Museum, are less associated with him. In his many exhibitions, Kadishman displayed his paintings of lambs scattered on the exhibition floor like a flock, as three-dimensional works standing in space, rather than a two-dimensional painting exhibition hanging on the wall, thus turning the paintings of the lambs into living bodies to move through and wander within, like a shepherd. Similarly, in Iron Flock & Assets, in order to experience the power of Kadishman’s creation, the viewer’s journey is not through paintings but through Kadishman’s sculptures as a flock, as the shepherd watches over the flock from a white base – the seer shepherd.

On the second floor, masterpieces of Israeli art are displayed, inalienable assets of Hebrew culture in Israel starting from the 1920s. These artworks by Israeli artists, who are pillars of modern Israeli culture and whose works influence contemporary Israeli art and artists. Thus, the balance between the modern artists influencing Israeli art and Kadishman, who raises the shepherd’s staff and proclaims, “until now and from here on, I am the one who realizes the deal inalienable assets of Israeli-Hebrew-Jewish art and culture for you, the pillars, I am the shepherd of the flock.”

The Iron Flock deal (the literal translation for inalienable assets deal in Hebrew) originally served sheep owners who required extensive care for their flocks and could not care for them properly. They used to give the flock to a shepherd or to anyone else willing to care for the flock in exchange for half of their profits, milk, offspring, and wool, while half of the profits belonged to the owners, and, on the other hand, the caretaker took full responsibility for the flock. When the contract came to an end, the owners demanded the flock back from the caretaker, and in the event of any loss to the flock, the caretaker was required to pay the full loss to the owners and restore the flock to its original value. This action was called the “Iron Flock” deal because the essence of the deal – that its value does not change – is similar to iron in its physical essence, which never changes.