“RIDE” – Notes on a sculpture
This sculpture was conceived during the Gulf War – a time when that peculiar and enduring animal, Homo Sapiens, was a lot in my mind. So was the traditional Equestrian monument of my European youth.
I tried to make a monument to man, devoid of all pomp, in full naked vulnerability, just barely protected with an insolent gesture and a Mona Lisa smile, doing what he does best – making a fool of himself
Man of always, of course, but particularly of today. I make him a contemporary centaur; half man, half car. (The lower body is a further schematization of The Yellow Car at the Even Ziv parking, Tel Aviv.)
He perches daringly, with temerity in fact from that “Golden Calf’ he rides on, that surf board of materialistic or ideological fetishism which gives him the illusion of purpose, and a feeling of security.
I’ve tried to put as much affection into this sculpture as I could, and little or no value judgment. Whatever humor there is in this piece, is the result of poking fun at somebody much loved – somebody like myself
I wanted this sculpture to be self-conscious in its setting, without much of a trace of architectural absorption, deprived of its pedestal, stranded like Robinson Crusoe in the midst of an urban sea…
and yet with a smile!
