BOOKS
DaviD Breuer-WeiL: raDiCaL visionary Skira Editore, 2011, hb, 400pp, £60
Reviewed by JuliaWeiner
It is very hard to do justice to David Breuer- Weil’s paintings in reproduction, asmany are trulymonumental in scale,measuring up to 2metres by 4.5metres. However, this new 400-page book, produced by the Italian publishing house Skira, has done justice to the work by giving overmany 60cmby 30cmfull bleed double spreads to the paintings, thus ensuring that something of the impact you gain when you view themin the original is captured. Themany excellent essays in the book
allude to all aspects of Breuer-Weil’s artistic production including his sculpture, landscape painting and drawings, but the main focus is on the series of works he entitles ‘Projects’. Three of the Projects have been exhibited to date, each in unusual venues which included a derelictmeat storage facility and a formermulti-storey car park.While he finds an appropriate space for Project 4, this publication allows us a sneak preview of what will be on show, also includingmany of the works shown in Projects 1 to 3, displayed alongside related drawings. In all the Project paintings, Breuer-
Weil explores the modern human condition. In Project 1 and 2, the subjects were often bleak and suggested the alienation and loneliness of modern life. The dominant colours were fiery red or yellow earth tones, suggesting either the hellish nature of life or dry, arid landscapes that we psychologically inhabit. Project 3 for the first time introduced
nature and the colour green into the paintings, and the works became lighter and more positive in tone, showing how nature was fighting back against industrialisation with trees and plants flourishing once more. For Project 4, Breuer-Weil’s main interest has been to show how strong feelings about homeland, territory and belongings can leave us increasingly isolated in smaller and smaller plots of land. He admits that these visions are the result of his “fear for the future of the embattled state of Israel” but they nevertheless offer a universal vision. One example is Cut Land (2009), where an idyllic country is reduced to smaller and smaller plots of land that become
Mortal, oil on canvas, 2010 (top) and Cut Land, oil on canvas, 2009
increasingly industrialised until people are living literally on the edge. In the same way that Project 3 saw the
introduction of green to Breuer-Weil’s palette, Project 4 includes a series of highly coloured works full of warmtones of orange and yellow, purple and pink. In these works, groups of people huddle aroundmatches, which the artist feels symbolise a human life. ‘In these works I wanted to paint the narrative of human lives, the image of a life lived that burns away in a glowing and spectacular blaze.’These lives as they burn cast long shadows that suggest the impact each human canmake. In Breuer-Weil’s exhibitions only the
titles give us any indication of what his thoughts were when painting each work. Critic John Russell Taylor compares himto Harold Pinter, who declared that once his plays were completed and launched on the world, he was no longer the authority on
what theymeant. However, in this book, Breuer-Weil comments on his own interpretation of his visions, which I found both interesting and helpful. AlthoughBreuer-Weilwould argue that
his paintings are universal, there are definitely strong Jewish undercurrents to a number of
hisworks.Many seemto dealwith the horrors of theHolocaust as they showburning of books, bodies trickling out of shower heads, or hundreds of jackets left hanging in a
cloakroom.More positive images include those suggesting the passing of time and the writing of history,withwhole civilisations ending up rolled up in huge scrolls, inspired by the fact that, as the artistwrites, “all of time and history is encoded in the greatest scroll of all, theTorah.” This book, which allows you not only
to enjoy the paintings but also understand some of the ideas that inspired them, is a pleasure to read.
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