The things they see

By Gitit Ginat

Haaretz August 26th 2005

Taga Tazazo is standing next to a Formica table in the workroom. In the sunny yard sit several adults, some smoking cigarettes and some staring into space.

Tazazo is disconnected from all that. He is totally immersed in drawing a new portrait of stunning beauty, in acrylic colors on canvas. The portrait is comprised of a pair of big eyes and a network of bars instead of a nose and a mouth. Is Tazazo aware of the image he is creating? Does he know that drawing bars instead of a mouth has an unequivocal symbolic meaning, on the verge of cliche? Attempts to get an answer about that from him encounter a beaming smile, shyness and silence.

Tazazo is one of 10 mentally challenged artists participating in the exhibit "Be'emet u'vetamim" ("Honestly and Truly: An Art Exhibition of Special People"), which opened last week in the Yahalom Theater in Ramat Gan, and was produced jointly by the division for the mentally disabled in the Social Welfare Ministry, together with Akim Israel - the National Association for the Habilitation of the Mentally Handicapped - the Shalem Foundation and other public institutions. When one looks at some of the works in the exhibit, including those of Tazazo, one discovers captivating and convincing visual maturity. Is this maturity only an illusion? Can the artistic activity of certain mentally challenged people be defined as art?

"This field, art by mentally challenged people, is a very anonymous field, which exists in privacy and doesn't go outside," says the curator of the exhibit, Ronit Snapir. "In Israel there are about 25,000 people who are mentally challenged, and about 9,000 of them are involved in various types of creative activity. Only a few of them turn out to be real artists. I chose those few from my experience as a curator, from intuition, after following their artistic development for years. In order to put the exhibit together, I examined 30 work portfolios. I decided that I wanted to visit the various institutions to see them work at firsthand, as well. There were cases when I was enthusiastic about a photo of some work, but later when I saw it in the studio, I felt that it was uninteresting and immature."

This is not Snapir's first project with mentally challenged artists. Her work with them began when she was in charge of educational activities at the Herzliya Museum of Art, and two years ago she even curated a similar exhibit, called "Tzayer li hibuk" ("Draw a Hug for Me"). "The lives of the mentally challenged in institutions are very regimented, not at all free," she explains. "From the moment they wake up, they are told when to eat, when to sleep and when to go to work. The only place where they are free to do as they wish is the art studio, and I find this place fascinating."

Snapir found this phenomenon fascinating not only from a human point of view, but professionally as well. "It took me time to understand that the art of mentally challenged people is not like children's paintings," she says. "In order to understand that, you need time and you have to accompany these artists for years. Today I can say that in the works of those who are genuinely talented, one can see the maturity, the life experience, the pain of life."

Snail-like hieroglyphics

One cannot learn about Tazazo's pain at firsthand, one can only learn about it from Anat Hadar, Tazazo's

therapist/rehabilitation counselor/art teacher. This wonderful artist, aged 31, with whom we conduct a fragmented conversation with the help of an interpreter who speaks Amharic, came from Ethiopia in 1990. For eight years he has been living in the Neveh Irus home in Nes Ziona, whose residents suffer from mental retardation and emotional problems.

In the mornings, Tazazo works as a cleaning assistant, afterward he paints. Four times a week, five hours a session, he paints without interruption. Dozens of his works hang on the walls of the home; some of them are stuck in a warehouse, in poor conditions. Often, because it is impossible to give him an endless number of canvases, he covers his creations with white paint and paints new ones over them.

He came to the home in a bad emotional state, and used to sit alone in the yard and commune with himself. But then he met Hadar. "From the first moment, I felt that Taga had something special, and I started to work with him," she recalls. "He used to fill entire pages with snail-like `hieroglyphics' he had invented for himself, and he did so all day every day, for half a year or a year. In spite of that, I managed to see that he had wonderful hands. Slowly but surely, I started to teach him monotype print, to print on his hieroglyphics. After that we went over to crayons, watercolors, collages, and in every medium, Taga did wonderful work.

"Taga's colors are influenced by his moods. They get darker when he's in a bad mood, and brighter when he's more optimistic. He also has many crises. When he's in a crisis, he goes back to the snail-like forms he drew at the beginning."

Where do Tazazo's snail-like forms come from? How is it that some of his works look like African art, when Tazazo has never seen art, and in his home in Ethiopia there were no paintings on the walls? Did he know someone who painted at home or in the village? No. All he remembers is that in his childhood, he used to make flutes from reeds.

One can only guess at Tazazo's sources of inspiration. Perhaps they are kitchen utensils or the fabrics used in the dresses of Ethiopian women. And perhaps, as Hadar says, laughing, his talent and knowledge come from "a previous incarnation. After all, people study for years to achieve qualities of painting like his."

Tazazo does not show any interest in the history of art, and when Hadar tries to expose him to the paintings of famous artists, he doesn't react. Can the creation of art be cut off from social, political and historical contexts? When Snapir began her curating work in this field, she asked the same question, and turned to the history of art: "I began to take an interest in theory, and to try to relate it to the works I collected. That's how I discovered the stream of `outsider art,' its rich history and the widespread activity carried out in its context on the world scene."

Pillars of outsider art

The term "outsider art" was coined in 1972 by art critic Roger Cardinal, as an extension of art brut, or raw art, a term coined by French artist Jean Dubuffet in the 1940s. Dubuffet, like other artists who were active in Paris after World War II, tried to deal with the existential crisis of European culture after the war.

Wherever he turned, he saw the fragments of this culture, its shattered and irreparable image. As a result, Dubuffet called for the formulation of a new creative concept, whereby the artist had to try to rid himself of logic and to seek the raw roots of artistic creation.

Dubuffet began to search for his "raw artists" in psychiatric hospitals all over Europe, and collected thousands of artworks, which are now on permanent display at the Art Brut Museum in Lausanne, and which travel all over the world. The concept of outsider art has also expanded over the years, and aside from art by the emotionally disturbed, it includes art created outside the borders of canonic art.

The late Israeli artist Meir Agassi, who devoted an entire issue of Studio Art Magazine to outsider art ("Hotel Utopia-Dystopia," January 1998), tried to define the main characteristics of these artists. Among other things, wrote Agassi, outsider artists are on the margins of society and cut off from the center. Most of them are autodidacts who did not have academic art training, they do not try to become famous and they are not aware of modernist irony.

For example, the American Henri Darger, whose book of fantastic paintings includes over 19,000 pages, was a sanitation worker in a hospital. Adolph Wolfli, who painted 45 books of art that include tens of thousands of paintings and texts, was a schizophrenic pedophile who was hospitalized in a sanitarium in Switzerland until his death. Both of them, who are among the pillars of outsider art, were discovered only after their deaths.

The "entrepreneurs" of outsider art struggled for years to have it recognized, and encountered sharp opposition on the part of critics from the world of modern art. American art critic Harold Rosenberg even disdainfully dubbed them butchers, postmen and patients in psychiatric hospitals. However, over the past 30 years, this stream has made significant advances in the United States and Europe. Some outsider artists are big stars, whose works are on display at important galleries and museums, and are sold for large sums

A lot of questions

"All over the world, the field started to be truly recognized only during the past 20 to 30 years," says Gilad Meltzer, the head of the art department at the Beit Berl Art Teachers' Training College, who discovered outsider art when he was studying in the United States. "Among other things, thanks to institutions such as the American Folk Art Museum in New York, which is on the same street as MOMA - the Museum of Modern Art."

In Israel, says Meltzer, the field is still not recognized. "The only similar field was known by the name of folk art, primitive art, and among its famous artists were Shalom of Safed and Gabriel Cohen. Because Judaism has such a short artistic history, secular Israeli art tried to connect itself with modernism and to stay away from folk art and handicrafts. In this view, Judaism deals with handicrafts. Israeliness deals with modernism."

Although he is an enthusiastic supporter of Snapir's initiative, Meltzer makes a clear distinction between emotionally disturbed artists and mentally challenged artists, and admits that in the case of the latter, there is a problem. "Most of the emotionally disturbed artists deliberately choose to be involved in art," he says. "Nobody suggested that they become involved in the field, they simply turned to it of their own free will. When it comes to mentally challenged artists, it's hard to say that there's an element of choice here, and usually, engaging in art is offered to them as a type of therapy.

"What's more important is that an emotionally disturbed artist has achieved conscious maturity as a person. Emotional illnesses begin to dominate his conscious life, and his artistic life, when he is a mature adult. When you look at the works of the emotionally disturbed, you see people who are aware of a visual medium, of the press, of art and mythology, but they see everything through the prism of the illness.

"When it comes to the mentally challenged, there is no conscious maturity. They are like children. Therefore, the experience of their world is the experience of very young children, and their level of creativity is not yet in a sophisticated and critical place. I wouldn't say that in their work something is happening on a sequential, serial and developing basis. Their world of sources is very limited. Something doesn't enable them to continue the chain of relationships in the world. However, that doesn't mean there are no wonderful and fascinating moments taking place [with their work]."

Snapir agrees that there is a problem. "The art of mentally challenged people raises a lot of questions," she says. "From where do they create? What are their motives? What power does the work have? According to what parameters should it be measured? Does the fact that they are mentally disabled prevent them from being artists? Is only a person who is aware of his actions and is capable of talking about his art an artist? For me, therein lies its charm. There's a gray area here, which cannot be thoroughly examined."

Contemporary artist Eliezer Sonnenschein carries on a dialogue with consumer culture. What is the difference between his works, whose elements are inspired by consumer products such as cigarette packets and cola cans - and those of Yaffa Dahan from the Akim hostel in Safed, who is creating a series of works from bags of Bamba snacks?

Meltzer: "In the reaction of Yaffa Dahan there will be an element of heart-wrenching naivete in her attitude toward the Bamba bag. In the case of Sonnenschein, it will be a conscious, critical, sometimes venomous observation of consumer culture. For that reason, the art of the mentally challenged has less influence than that of emotionally disturbed artists, where there are also superstars whose works cost a fortune. In their case, there is no reason why artists who didn't study art cannot create fascinating art. With the mentally challenged it's a problem, because their work has an element of chance, rather than of obsession that characterizes the works of the emotionally disturbed - obsession that fascinates the art world."

Nostalgia for Maine

With all the logic in his words, it is clear that Meltzer never met Yonatan Singer. Singer, a 59-year-old man who suffers from autism, immigrated with his family from Portland, Maine, and since 1987 has lived in the Kfar Tikva institution in Kiryat Tivon. When he was three years old, recalls his father Daniel, Yonatan got lost on the way to a family event. When they found him, he told them he wanted to get to a big chimney on the other side of the city. Since then, says his father, Yonatan has had a major obsession with chimneys, bridges and factories.

At the age of 12 Singer received a camera, photographed all the factories near his home, and collected them in an album together with newspaper clips and photos. In the end, when he had dozens of them, Singer's mother decided to throw away the albums, because they were in terrible condition and there was no room in the house. Singer says it happened "on a Saturday morning in 1967." Since that time, Singer has been reconstructing in his paintings the photos he took, along with factories that were destroyed or closed, and which he remembers perfectly. In the administration office of Kfar Tikva, he tells me about dozens of factories, bridges and chimneys, some of them destroyed and some still standing, in Portland, Maine. He remembers exactly alongside which highway they stood, and in what context he saw them for the first time, even though it was over 30 years ago.

Yelena Patzak, a welfare worker in Kfar Tikva, says that "Yonatan has difficulty accepting change or loss. It's very important to him to reconstruct the things that were broken or lost. For that reason, he paints factories as they once were, before they were destroyed. His art therapist is trying to bring him closer to the present, and lately we see progress in that area: Yonatan is painting pictures of his present, of work, of the relationship with his mother who died recently, and with friends. In the final analysis, Yonatan's paintings are a very important element in his life. It's a chance to relax, a chance to come to terms with the losses and with past events. Painting brings him back to reality."

Tazazo also paints out of obsession. Says Hadar: "He can deal obsessively with the same thing for a long time. I try to move him into different directions. Sometimes I even take the brush away from him and draw a line on the painting, so he'll stop."

Can Tazazo be considered an artist, even if he is not totally aware of his art?

Hadar: "I think that Taga is an artist by any criterion. Perhaps the only thing that distinguishes him from normal artists is my close guidance. But painting is the mirror of Taga's soul. I don't know what exactly in his paintings speaks to many people. Maybe he is simply capable of expressing his inner world with great precision. He is the only one of my students of whom I can say that he is a real artist, who doesn't paint like a mentally challenged person. Beyond that, there is room for the art of the mentally challenged, too."

How much of that is therapy, and how much is a creative instinct?

"I don't know. Do you think the two can be separated?"

Snapir also gets angry at those who cast doubt on the art of the mentally challenged. "In some way," she notes, "maybe because of the `sex appeal' of emotionally disturbed artists, like Van Gogh for example, emotionally disturbed artists have entered the texts of the theoreticians. I don't think the question is whether the work of the mentally challenged is art. The question is in what category we place this art. I think that in Israel we are still afraid to define such a category, maybe because the art field is small and young and closed, and there is no room for everyone. Maybe if there were more widespread activity, more budgets, more museums - we could enter this art into a certain canon."

How do you identify artistic awareness in artists with whom you can't even talk?

Snapir: "The moment I decided to look into the personal stories of the artists I chose, I discovered that some of the works are closely connected to their personal story. A mentally challenged girl who paints a lot of pregnancies and babies, and a fetus within a fetus within a fetus, and a woman with several fetuses, and you're familiar with her personal story and know that she was abandoned at birth by her mother; you suddenly understand that she is capable of processing inner materials. These artists are not emotionally disconnected. They are disconnected only because society has disconnected them.

"It's true that I haven't succeeded in talking to mentally challenged people, but I see their work, and I see that there is awareness there. It's just that I simply can't reach it. It's clear to me that they know what they're doing. The same is true of choice. These people decide to engage in art. If it didn't interest them, they would get up and walk away, sit on the bench all day and stare into space."

An 'exceptional child'

If there is a place for mentally challenged artists, as Snapir and Hadar claim, how is that place measured in the price of the work? A short survey of several public auction houses in Tel Aviv reveals that it is difficult to measure the economic value of this art. According to Roni Gilat-Baharaff, the director of Christie's Israel, "the public auction market is a secondhand market, and the pricing is done according to previous sales. For that reason, Christie's does not deal in sales of this kind, although if art by the mentally challenged were presented regularly, maybe it would be possible to speak of such a possibility. At the moment, I assume that the purchase of these works is done only at charity and fundraising events."

According to the representative of another auction house in Tel Aviv, the works of mentally challenged artists cannot be subjected to cost accounting. A work is priced according to the price of previous works, with attention paid to the size, the technique and the name of the painter. In the auction house they tried in the past, as a gesture, to sell works by mentally challenged and emotionally disabled artists. The prices of the works ranged from $200-$300, but not one of them was sold.

Does the work of a mentally challenged artist have a significant monetary value?

Meltzer: "I would say to the general public: `If you like the work, buy it.' Should collectors invest in such art? Categorically, no. Collectors ask questions about monetary value. In my opinion, 99 percent of these works will not rise in value."

Snapir disagrees. "When it comes to the arguments of the auction houses," she says, "all I can say is that somebody has to start. You can travel abroad and learn how such works should be priced. The fact is that there, they have artistic value. You can't say that if something doesn't exist, it can't be done. You have to pick up the challenge. Everything is really in its infancy, and the question is whether or not you want to handle this baby. I still think that people are afraid to get involved in this. Why deal with an `exceptional child' when you can bet on a sure thing? Even though there is no professional who can price the works, many people have shown an interest in buying works from the exhibit."

One of those people is Ruthie Alon, who may be the owner of the only collection of outsider art in Israel. Alon, who deals with investments in a venture capital firm, has been collecting works by such artists for 10 years. In the collection, which she began when she was living in the United States, there are about 100 works by emotionally disturbed, autistic and mentally challenged people.

How much did you pay for works by outsiders?

Alon: "The highest price I paid for an outsider work in the United States was $2,000. In Israel, the highest price will be about NIS 2,000. Although I'm not interested in selling items from the collection, I can definitely say that the monetary value has increased."

What attracts you to outsider art?

"From my point of view, this is art that comes from the heart, it has no rules and no discipline. In Israel, for example, there are wonderful paintings of very high quality. I'm not saying that everything done by a disabled person is good art. But there are works where it is clear that their creator has exceptional talent, that he can be exactly like you and me."

With all his reservations, Meltzer agrees with Snapir, Hadar and Alon. "The initiative for displaying the exhibit is welcome in every way," he says. "These are people who have not been fortunate, and anything that can be done to show that they have interesting sides to them that are full of content, is a welcome initiative. There is no argument about that. Beyond that, artists, collectors, curators and the general public have to become familiar with the entire visual spectrum, including comics, graffiti and outsider art. It is important that artists get to see everything in the visual field. That they take an interest in the entire visual canon at their disposal in Israel and the world over, as well as in marginal communities that enrich the artist, that show him how one works with a handicap, whether intellectual or emotional."

So mentally challenged artists are good only in order to serve as a source of inspiration for healthy artists?

Meltzer: "Not necessarily. I think exhibits like these should be displayed in major galleries, and not only because those who exhibit them are fuel for inspiration. It is possible that out of a group of 30 mentally challenged artists, two will be very interesting, and then the fact that the artists are mentally challenged is not really an issue for me. But the professional questions about the works have to be critical and cruel - just like those asked about a normal, healthy artist."

'Painting is Emotion'

"Painting is emotion. Painting can give people love," says Eliezer Hornstein, 39, who lives in a communal residential complex in Afula, and paints in the Akim of Afula and elsewhere. At present he is participating in a play he wrote, which deals with the longing of mentally challenged people to raise a family and bring children into the world. Aside from the play, Hornstein engages in art.

"I don't know why people treat mental retardation like that," he says. "In the final analysis, it's like sports: One leads, and one trails behind him. That's all. The ordinary population thinks it is better than us, but it is different, too."

What do you like about artistic activity?

Hornstein: "Drawing. Love comes from the pencil. I took a pencil and I started to try, and in the end I managed to achieve something. I won't give up ceramics, either. That's my therapy. If I start working on ceramics, I don't eat, don't drink. If you'll excuse me, I'm barely capable of going to the bathroom. That's ceramics for me."

And how can art change your life?

"That I don't know. My life is sad. But forget it, I don't want to talk about that. That's already too much."